Surf, Sun, Sand
by cherrygorilla
Summary: A series of one shots based around the characters of Teen Beach Movie. Disclaimer: I don't own Teen Beach Movie. Warning: Some one shots will include my OC.
1. Hungry (Mack & Brady)

**Hello!**

 **So here's the story where I'm going to be posting my one shots until my computer's fixed. I'm hopefully going to be able to put up one of these chapter things a day until I go on holiday so keep leaving suggestions for stories that you'd like to see me write! Here's the one shot for today!**

His chest rose and fell in a steady rhythm, each movement felt by her hand, which was delicately placed on his torso, her finger tips brushing and running over the now dry material of the his yellow rash guard. While his girlfriend's fingers touched his chest, his fingers gently combed through her not-quite-dry-yet chocolate brown locks, trying their hardest not to get stuck and tug at a knot. The sunshine beat down on their skin and the crystal clear waves rushed up the shore before changing their mind and retreating back to the vast ocean. The water lapped onto the sand a few metres away from the lifeguard chair that the couple were curled up in, fitting together like two jigsaw pieces. Her head slotted into the space between his chin and his shoulder and his hand moulded into position at her waist, hugging her so close to him that they could almost be counted as one person. Contented smiles played at their lips as they gazed out at the horizon, trying to think of a better situation than this one but not being able to come up with an answer. He turned his head to the side a few inches and planted a kiss on the top of her head. A shot of what felt like electricity blossomed from that spot and flooded through her whole body and instinctively her grin widened. As she grinned out to sea, he felt his own smile growing, even though he was now just staring at the top of her head. He could tell that she was smiling from the way that her cheek moved slightly and he didn't even need to see proof to make him grin in return, he could barely contain his own smile anyway. Both of them were now grinning like idiots although they had no idea how much the other valued them or how lucky they felt to have each other, but they didn't care, they just knew that they were meant for each other. They worked perfectly. Or, to quote some of their friends from the past, they were meant to be.

"I'm hungry," the boy said a few seconds later, saying the first thought that popped into his head that wasn't centred around his girlfriend, which was why it took him a while to process the words. She was part of his thoughts most of the time anyway, so when they were together it just made it even harder for him to concentrate.

"Brady, we've just had lunch," the girl said, sitting up straight and adjusting herself so that she could look at her boyfriend properly. "How can you still be hungry?" she chuckled, tucking a piece of his blonde hair behind his ear.

"I don't know," Brady replied, his eyes trained on his girlfriend and his smile staying firmly on his face.

"But we just ate," the girl continued. "And I would know, I paid for it," she added, making Brady let out a small laugh.

"Which I am very thankful for, babe," Brady smiled. His girlfriend let out another chuckle before leaning in and planting a kiss on his cheek. "As I am for that," Brady continued, gazing at the brunette again as she leaned back to her sitting position, still letting out a tiny chuckle as she went.

"You're welcome. But, babe?" the girl said, a more prominent laugh escaping her lips this time as she referenced her new nickname. "Really?"

"Hey, what's wrong with it? I just wanted to switch it up from Mack, that's all," Brady said, trying to defend himself but only getting another small chuckle from the girl sat beside him. "Ok, fine. What do you want me to call you? Sweetie? Honey?" Brady suggested jokingly, making Mack let out yet another laugh. He knew that Mack would hate being called any of these names but at least he was making her smile by saying them. "Cutie Pie? Ooh, that actually sounds good," Brady continued, cutting off his list of affectionate nicknames rather abruptly.

"Cutie Pie? You think that's a good choice?" Mack scoffed, raising one of her eyebrows at the blonde in disapproval.

"No, I think that pie sounds good, I'm still hungry," Brady chuckled.

"Oh come on then, let's go get you something to eat," Mack sighed, chuckling yet again as she started to get up.

"I don't want to just go and get something, that's boring," Brady whined, messing around purely for his own amusement, but hopefully for Mack's too because he never got tired of seeing her smile or hearing her laugh, which to him was the most beautiful sight and the most beautiful sound on the planet.

"What do you want to do then?" Mack asked, putting her hands on her hips as she knelt in front of her boyfriend, one foot already dangling over the edge of the wooden lifeguard chair, ready to climb down to the sand. "I thought that you wanted food."

"I do want food but just going and buying it's boring," Brady said.

"What do you want me to do, cook you something?" Mack asked, not being serious, which is why Brady's answer came as a surprise.

"Now you're talking," Brady said, a mischievous smile forming on his face as Mack's eyebrows furrowed together.

"Wait, what? Brady, I don't have anything to cook for you," Mack started, obviously not terribly fond of the idea so far.

"Good, I was feeling like baking something instead," Brady chuckled.

"Well you do have a sweet tooth," Mack sighed, letting out a small giggle as Brady's smile widened.

"Wow, you know me so well," Brady said sarcastically, forcing another laugh out of his girlfriend.

"Just because you want me to bake you something doesn't mean that I automatically have all of the ingredients at my house, you know," Mack said, trying to put her serious head back on as she folded her arms across her chest.

"Well we'll just have to go on adventure to the faraway land of the supermarket, won't we?" Brady said, sending a quizzical look to his girlfriend, seeing if she'd given in to him yet. But he was just shot a challenging stare from Mack.

"We can't just go into the supermarket dressed like this," she said, motioning to her surfing attire.

"Says who? I think that you look great," Brady shot back, looking Mack up and down to confirm his statement.

"Flattery's not going to get you anywhere," Mack said, praying that Brady couldn't see how flushed her cheeks were so that she could keep up this act of her being stubborn.

"Oh really? Well how about bribery? I'll pay for everything we need, you can choose what we make _and_ I'll give you a piggy back to the car," Brady suggested, noticing how hard Mack was finding it to remain unwilling to go along with him.

"Oh, fine. Deal," Mack agreed, watching with glee as Brady's face broke out into a huge grin. She moved to the side so that Brady could climb down the lifeguard tower first before following him down and then jumping on his back when she reached the bottom.

"Woohoo! Warm, baked goods of Mack's choice here we come!" Brady hollered, making Mack giggle away from her place on his back. She wrapped her arms loosely around his neck and he started the rather bumpy piggyback ride to his car.

An enthusiastic singalong session and a raucous trip around the supermarket later (it turns out that skidding down the isles with the help of the trolley results in a lot of squealing from both males and females thanks to the couple's little experiment), Mack and Brady were walking back into Mack's beach shack with a brown bag full of the ingredients they needed.

"I can't believe that we've been rock climbing together, gone bowling together and were thrown back in time into a 1960s beach musical together but we've never cooked with each other before," Brady said as Mack opened the door for him, since he was holding the bag of food for her.

"That might be a good thing, this could turn out to be a disaster," Mack said, placing the keys down on a table near the door before slipping off into the kitchen.

"Hey, you can't go wrong with chocolate chip cookies," Brady chuckled before he followed her and dumped the bag of ingredients down on the counter just before Mack turned around to face him. "Right, now put this on," she instructed, tossing his a bundle of blue fabric. "And then wash your hands, please."

Brady unravelled the piece of cloth and found that it was a sky blue apron with thin white stripes on. As he slipped it over his head he looked across and saw Mack doing the same with an identical apron apart from the fact that her's was light pink. "Hey, look," he chuckled. "We match."

"Oh yeah," Mack laughed, glancing down to look at her own apron before glancing over at Brady in his. "You look cute."

"That's funny, I was just about to say the same thing to you," Brady grinned, pecking her cheek with a kiss and wrapping his arms around her for a second before sauntering past her on his way to the sink. The pair washed their hands and weighed out the ingredients and after about five minutes of sorting everything out, they were ready to start.

"Ok, so you've preheated the oven, right?" Mack checked, glancing across at the blonde for reassurance.

"You know it," Brady grinned.

"Great, so first we've got to mix the butter with the sugar," Mack explained, reading from the recipe that she'd selected.

"Boom," Brady said, dropping the block of butter into the mixing bowl, followed by what he thought was sugar. "And boom," he said triumphantly, staring at the bowl of ingredients with a confident smile playing at his lips.

"Uh, Brady?" Mack said, tearing her boyfriend's gaze away from the mixing bowl and up to her. "That was the flour."

Brady's face fell almost instantly. "Oops," he said, looking extremely guilty, like a child who'd been caught trying to find their Christmas presents a week early.

"Don't worry," Mack chuckled, thinking that his expression was adorable. "We'll just start over," she cooed, dabbing her finger in the flour before flirtatiously stroking Brady's nose, leaving a faint, white line behind. Brady just laughed at her and quickly brushed it off, much to Mack's fake disappointment. So he redid the flour marking, smudging it on himself just so that he could see Mack's smile again.

So once the pair had finished covering Brady's nose in flour war paint, they weighed out more butter and flour and started again. They mixed the butter and sugar correctly this time and they added the vanilla essence but then it came to the egg.

"Are you sure that I can trust you cracking this?" Mack asked, raising an eyebrow at her boyfriend as she handed him the egg.

"Positive, I'm a pro," Brady said, sending her a cheeky grin. He cracked the egg, making sure not to allow any fragments of shell into the mixture. "See? Perfect, just like you," Brady smirked, gazing happily at the light blush that gradually appeared on Mack's face.

"Well done," Mack chuckled, turning back to the recipe to see what they had to do next when she felt something being smeared across her cheek. She looked shot a glance across at Brady, who she found to be laughing away to himself, before raising a hand to her cheek. "Did you just put raw egg on my cheek?" Mack asked in disbelief, her eyebrows knitted together as she made the connection to the dripping eggshell halves in Brady's right hand and the slimy mark on her cheek. Brady just replied with a mischievous laugh before dumping the eggshells in the bin and drying his hands. "You seriously just did that?" Mack asked, trying to mask her amusement with fake anger. But yet again Brady didn't respond, he just grabbed a pinch of flour from a separate bowl and flicked it at Mack.

"Hey, look! It sticks," Brady chuckled as he noticed the flecks of flour sticking the the patch of raw egg on Mack's cheek.

Mack retaliated by grabbing her own pinch of flour and blowing it in Brady's direction. She let out a giggle as Brady reached for the chocolate chips and threw a handful at his girlfriend, who copied his actions. The couple let out laughs and shrieks as they broke into a tiny food fight, tossing handfuls of ingredients at each other before Brady ran over to the sink and grabbed the removable faucet and wielded it like a weapon.

"Don't make me use this," Brady warned although the pair were both sharing huge smiles. Mack took a step back with her hands in the air, playing along with Brady's little game. But the blonde still sent a spray of cold water in Mack's direction, making her shriek. She then grabbed the leftover bag of flour and held it at an angle above Brady's head. "Hey, hey, hey, I'm sorry," Brady apologised, now taking his turn to put his hands up in surrender. But Mack just smirked and tilted the bag even further, causing a cloud of white powder to emerge from the bag's opening. "Stop," Brady said, but the phrase came out more like a laugh than he'd intended for it to be. Mack always pretended to be mad around him so now it was his turn. Mack let out a giggle and shook the bag, sending an avalanche of flour to rain down on the pair. "Mack! Stop it! You're making so much mess!" Brady scolded, but a laugh squeezed it's way out at the end of the sentence, making Mack's smile grow. Although Brady didn't seem that way, he really liked everything to be neat and tidy, so when his girlfriend was deliberately tipping flour onto the already partly wet floor, he wasn't going to let her get off easily.

"Oh it's fine, I'll just clear it up later," she replied, putting the bag of flour back on the counter and wrapping her hand around Brady's bicep with one hand and slotting the removable faucet back into place with her other.

"Why are you so adorable?" Brady asked, chuckling and ruffling Mack's hair before letting his hand fall to her waist. Mack let out a small giggle as they walked back over to their baking area, their arms wrapped around each other's torsos. They finished the mixture and rolled out each individual cookie before Mack slid them into the oven. And 10 minutes later, she returned to take them back out again.

"You ready?" Mack asked, hearing Brady's footsteps pounding the wooden floorboards as he ran up behind her.

"I've been waiting for this moment for almost an hour," Brady breathed, making Mack giggle as he stared longingly at the closed oven door from over her shoulder. Mack took the cookies out and she was just admiring the tray of even, golden brown cookies when one of them disappeared, and they'd only been out of the oven for no longer than two seconds. Mack set the tray down and watching Brady's retreating figure disappear into the living room.

"Brady! They've just come out the oven! They're going to be really-"

"Ow! Ok, they're really hot," Brady called from the living room.

"Brady, if you've dropped that on the floor then there's going to be trouble," Mack said jokingly, walking into the living room behind Brady, although knowing him he'd probably be more bothered about the crumbs than she would be.

"No, it's fine, it landed on the sofa," Brady said, quickly picking up the cookie and moving it over a table in the corner. "Which means that I can still eat it later, when it's cooled down," he added with a smirk.

"You wouldn't be having to worry about your cookie's sanitation if you'd just waited for them to cool down in the first place," Mack said, placing her hands on her hips and tipping her head to the side.

"Can you blame me for being excited?" Brady asked, taking her hands in his and bringing them up in between them both.

"No," Mack smiled. "I wanted one too."

"You can share mine when it's cooled down," Brady offered, gently kissing his girlfriend's hands.

"Brady, you do realise that we have like twenty more cookies back in the kitchen," Mack said, raising her eyebrow at him and trying to stifle a laugh.

"Oh yeah," Brady chuckled, a few seconds of silence passing afterwards with the couple just gazing at each other.

"Are your hands ok? You didn't burn them did you?" Mack checked, turning his hands over so that she could look at his palms.

"No, I don't think so," Brady replied, examining his own hands when Mack was done. "It was only a cookie after all, it's not like I just stuck my hands in the oven," he said sarcastically.

"Well I'll give you this anyway," Mack said, kissing Brady's fingertips, where she thought he had burnt them, even though he claimed that he hadn't.

"Actually, now that I think about it, I think that I might have put that cookie in my mouth too," Brady said, trying to keep a straight face.

"Oh, really? So what does that mean?" Mack asked, raising her eyebrow at the blonde again and trying just as hard as Brady to keep a straight face.

"It means that I might have burnt my mouth too," Brady said, a trace of a smile threatening to spring onto his face.

"So I'm guessing that you want one of these now?" Mack asked, leaning in so close to Brady that he could feel her breath tickling his cheeks. Their brown eyes held each other's gaze until they couldn't bare to keep their lips apart any longer. Mack pressed her lips onto Brady's and, without hesitation, he kissed her back, their bodies melting together so that they become one. Mack's fingers ran through Brady's blonde hair and down to the base of his neck, starting to move down the top of his back. Where as Brady's hands found their place at the base of Mack's back, occasionally one would move up to run a hand through her hair but they mainly just tried to pull her as close to him as possible. Their lips locked as their bodies collided, adrenaline pumping through their veins the deeper into the kiss they got. They eventually had to break apart, because the small gasping breaths weren't enough to prevent them from fainting after a while, and when they did they just stared at each other, big grins playing at their previously connected lips. "Maybe we should bake things more often," Mack breathed, wrapping her arms around Brady's neck and bringing their foreheads together so that they were just touching. And their lips found each other once again, obviously as hungry for another kiss as Brady had been for food at the start of this story.

 **I hope that you liked it!**

 **So it was just a fluffy one shot of Mack and Brady baking, I don't know where I got the idea but I thought that it would be cute! I really hope that I did it justice because even though I love them together, I find writing stuff about Mack and Brady really hard. :/**

 **I can't thank you enough for all of the reviews and follows and favourites I've been getting lately, they mean the world to me! And I'm so pleased that people left suggestions so quickly! You guys are the best!**

 **Tomorrow I'm going to try to write the truth or dare one shot but I wanted to ask you two things:**

 **1\. Would you like to see my OC (Coral) to be in the story?**

 **And 2. Could you please leave some suggestions of truths/dares you'd like to see the characters do? And if you'd like to see a specific character do a certain truth/dare then let me know too!**

 **Please leave other suggestions for one shots as well because I'll try my best to do as many as possible! I want to keep you guys happy!**

 **Also, side note and random update on my life, I think that I twisted my ankle when I went bowling on Saturday, so that sucks. But at least that gives me an excuse to stay in and write as long as I keep my foot up. XD**

 **Thank you for reading!**

 **-cherrygorilla**


	2. Truth Or Dare (Everyone)

**Hello!**

 **I just want to start off by saying a huge thank you to you all! Eight reviews in two days?! That's crazy! Thank you so much! It means the world to me! And all of the reviews have been so lovely too, you guys are the best!**

 **Also, I just want to apologise to TKDP, I had already written this one shot before you reviewed so I couldn't include your dare idea and I had already put my OC into the story. I hope you don't mind, I just wanted to explain it though, I didn't want you thinking that I'd deliberately ignored your review. :)**

 **(Side note, if you haven't read my other stories previously and you don't know who my OC, Coral, is then I thought that I'd explain it. She's Tanner's twin sister and she recently moved to the beach and started dating Butchy, that's all you really need to know for this story.)**

 **(And, just as a heads up, the relationships in this one shot are: Mack & Brady, Lela & Tanner, Coral (my OC) & Butchy, Giggles & Lugnut, CheeChee & Seacat and Struts & Rascal. However, that doesn't mean that those relationships will be applied to all of my one shots, if someone requests a story centred around a different pairing then I'll happily write that!) **

**Anyway, enough explaining, here's the truth or dare one shot!**

When Mack and Brady washed up in the 1962 beach musical, Wet Side Story, for the millionth time that summer (ok, millionth is a bit of an exaggeration but they'd just lost count), they were reunited with their best friends and the leading couple of the film: Lela and Tanner. Now, you'd probably expect a big reunion to take place and for a shindig to be planned in honour of the couple from the 21st century's return so that they could dance the night away with the cast of the movie. But instead Mack and Brady insisted that the beach residents kept their plans, promising that they'd go along with whatever they had already arranged for that evening. What they didn't realise though was that the 60s teens had planned to have their monthly game night in the attic of Lela and Butchy's house that day.

"Are you sure that you guys are ok with this?" Lela checked, glancing back over her shoulder to Mack and Brady as she led the way down the pavement to her house.

"Yeah, we could just do this tomorrow," Tanner added. "It's no big deal, we can still organise a shindig for you guys, I'm sure that everyone would be down for that, no one would mind."

"Guys, it's fine, we're just glad to be hanging out with you at all," Brady chuckled, trying to reassure the fretting couple.

"Yeah, there's no need to worry," Mack agreed.

"Oh, alright then," Lela giggled, a smile blossoming on her face. "I can get something for you both to change into and then we can go and set up the room," she explained, skipping up to the front door, taking out the house keys, slotting them into the lock and then eventually swinging open the door.

"I'll go and get the others, see you in about twenty minutes, sweetie," Tanner said, walking over to Lela, who was already excitedly scurrying around the living room, and planting a light kiss on her lips.

"Bye," Brady called, but Tanner was already out of the door and halfway down the driveway, so he didn't get a reply.

"Ok, so you guys need some clothes. I'm sure Butchy will have something in his room that you can wear, Brady, and I know that I've got the cutest sundress that would look perfect on you, Mack," Lela babbled, getting very overly excited by the presence of her friends. "Ooh!" she gasped, cutting herself off mid-ramble. "I remember now! I want to show you the new curtains I got in my bedroom!" Lela exclaimed, taking Mack's hand and dragging her up the staircase. All Mack could do was let out a chuckle, Lela never ceased to amaze her with her endless amounts of enthusiasm, and it just made her all the more lovable. There couldn't be a single person who had met Lela and hadn't liked her, it just seemed impossible to Mack. And it definitely made her wonder how someone as innocent as Lela could be mixed up in the rough and tough biker gang, the Rodents. But that's the way the movie worked, so no matter how bizarre it seemed, it all managed to run like clockwork, like everything was perfect.  
Lela selected a pretty, pale blue sundress for Mack to wear and she flicked through her older brother's wardrobe until she found a pair of jeans that Brady insisted would be fine, although Lela wasn't convinced. The three had had only just started to gather up blankets and cushions to carry up to the attic, where the games evening would be held, when they heard the roar of motorcycles outside.

"I think we've got company," Brady called up to Lela, who was halfway up the staircase when her older brother burst through the front door, followed by the other three leading members of the Rodents.

"Alright, are we's early or somthin'?" Butchy asked, slipping his helmet off and tossing it to the side.

"Yeah, where's the surfers?" Lugnut asked, quickly scanning the room in front of him.

"Tanner went out to find them," Lela explained, hurrying over to her fellow bikers with a bundle of blankets in her arm. "But look who we've got as guests!" she exclaimed as she stepped to the side, revealing Mack and Brady, who were still awkwardly stood on the staircase, clutching stacks of pillows in their arms.

"Oh, hey guys!" Struts greeted, blowing a bubble with her gum and giving the couple a quick wave.

"You two stickin' around for games night?" CheeChee asked, placing a hand on her hip and raising an eyebrow at the pair.

"Yeah," Mack replied, surprisingly glad to be seeing the movie characters that she now counted as her friends.

"Hey, isn't that my shirt?" Butchy asked, cutting into the conversation and staring questioningly at the outfit that Lela had dressed Brady in.

But before Lela could explain anything, a shout from the driveway broke the previously relatively calm environment. Giggles and Rascal leap-frogged through the door and were followed by Seacat running through the door giving Coral a piggy back. "Truth or dare! Truth or dare!" the four of them chanted, huge grins on their faces they pumped their fists in the air along with their cheers.

"I found them," Tanner said, walking through the door after the four surfers and looking very pleased with himself.

"What are you's doin'?" Struts asked, sending the new arrivals a very puzzled and slightly disapproving look, isolating each word that she spoke.

"Getting in the mood for games night," Rascal replied, giving Giggles a double high five.

"We're playing truth or dare?" Mack asked, starting to regret her decision of agreeing to participate in this evening's activities upon hearing the surfers' hollers.

"Heck yeah we are, we've been looking forward to it all day!" Seacat exclaimed, quickly high fiving Coral before grabbing her leg again, trying to prevent yet another fall after the previous four that had occurred since they'd started the piggy-back ride about an hour ago.

"I still don't get why you guys are so excited," Lela said, allowing Tanner to take some of the blankets in her arms so that she didn't have to carry them all.

"Are you kidding?! Truth or dare is awesome!" Coral cried, using one of the more modern terms that she'd picked up from Brady. The two teens from the 21st century had spent so much time with the Wet Side Story characters that they'd started picking up their lingo, and vice versa, but the surfers seemed to have taken a shine to it a little bit more than the bikers.

"Must be a surfer thing," Butchy muttered.

"Come on, let's get up there then!" Giggles exclaimed, running over so that she was stood behind Lela and Tanner, who, after Giggles' comment, started to make their way upstairs. Mack and Brady followed, then the bikers: Struts, CheeChee, Butchy and Lugnut, then Rascal and finally Seacat and Coral, who insisted on attempting to climb the stairs in their piggy-back style, which admittedly wasn't the best idea. After the third thud, followed by a shriek and then a collection of laughs from the back of the queue, enough was enough for the leader of the Rodents.

"Seacat, give it a rest, man. I swear to god if you do anythin' to hurt my girlfriend-" Butchy snapped, getting sick of hearing the sounds of the surfer boy dropping his girl.

"Oh, so you're finally calling her your girlfriend now?" Seacat shot, knowing that he was taking a risk by saying that, but not knowing that Butchy was going to get so defensive about the matter.

"Shut it, Seacat. If you wants to keep your hands then I suggest that you get 'em off my girl," Butchy snarled, obviously not in the greatest of moods.

"Butch, it's fine, _I'm_ fine. There's nothing to worry about, it's just a bit of fun," Coral said, hoping to calm down her boyfriend.

"Coral, stay outta this," Butchy said, not even looking at the surfer girl when he spoke. "You's got one more chance water boy," Butchy threatened, glaring at Seacat.

"To do what, Butchy?" Seacat asked, finding the fact that the biker boy was getting so worked up about this a little bit pointless.

"Butchy, please calm down," Coral tried again.

"No, and I thought I told you to stay outta this," Butchy said, causing a standstill on the staircase for everyone behind the Rodents leader as he turned around to face Seacat and Coral properly. Coral removed her hands from around Seacat's neck and held them up in defense, not really wanting to start an arugment between one of her best friends and her boyfriend.

"Gee, isn't that a nice way to talk to your girlfriend?" Seacat said sarcastically to Butchy, getting a little irritated himself about the matter.

"That's it, get your salty, surfer mitts off her you-" Butchy shouted, trying to push past Lugnut and get to Seacat. But the surfer boy obeyed Butchy's request, letting go of Coral's legs, not realising that she was still not holding on around his neck, so as you could imagine, she took quite a tumble down to stairs. "What the he-" Butchy started, launching at Seacat as he helplessly watched his girlfriend bump down the stairs, but luckily Lugnut managed to hold him back a bit, not really wanting a fight to break out in the middle of the staircase for various reasons.

"Guys, stop being so stupid!" Lela scolded from the top of the next flight of stairs, hearing the commotion and wondering what was holding the others up.

"Hey! Stop bein' jerks to each other, you two, grow up and stop arguin' all the time," CheeChee added, storming back down the stairs so that she could look directly at the two squabbling boys. The five teens still stood near the bottom of the stairs all moped up the stairs in silence, even Rascal and Lugnut, who hadn't gotten involved in the argument, were sent into a stunned and slightly embarrassed silence.

Lela, Mack and Giggles were already laying out the blankets when the other five walked in, all wearing stony expressions. As everyone dispersed into the room, Butchy looked like he was trying to say something to Coral, who was stood gently rubbing her head. But she just gave him an unimpressed look and held her hand up to him, indicating that she wasn't in the mood to talk about it. After all, it was partly his fault that she fell, she knew he was just trying to protect her but he was causing a lot more trouble rather than helping.

"See, that's whatcha get when ya act like a moron," Struts drawled, twirling a strand of hair around her finger and laughing as Butchy huffed something inaudible and rolled his eyes.

The rules of the truth or dare game that they were taking part in required everyone to write down one truth and one dare on separate pieces of paper and then put them into two bowls: one for the truths and one for the dares. Only then could the games begin.

"Alright, who's going first?" Lela asked, taking her place in the circle of teens, who were all taking up various spots on the floor of the attic but still managing to form something that resembled a circle.

"Why don't we let the guests go first?" Giggles suggested, making everyone's eyes fall to Mack and Brady.

"Ladies first," Brady said after a short pause.

Mack raised her eyebrows at him, giving him a look that said 'really?'. But with everyone's eyes now on her, Mack couldn't really say no, so she reached over to one of the bowls and picked out a slip of paper. "Dare," she read out, making her heart sink a little bit but drawing everyone's attention in just with one word. Everyone loved the dares. "Keep your arms and legs tied together for the rest of the game and place a lampshade over your head," she recited, frowning at the slip of paper.

"Who the heck wrote that?" CheeChee asked, finding the dare rather strange.

"I guess we'll never know, the writer of each one has to stay a secret," Rascal explained.

"Well at least it's a good one to start with, you're gonna be like that for a while, Mack," Seacat chuckled, standing up to go and find some rope since he was closest to the door. It took three people almost ten minutes to find some rope so when Seacat and Tanner walked back upstairs holding a length of rope each and Lela skipped up holding a lampshade, Mack sighed, she'd been hoping that they wouldn't be able to find anything.

"This is so weird," Mack commented as Tanner tied her hands together and Seacat bound up her ankles.

"Number one rule of truth or dare: try not to think about things too much," Tanner said quietly, finishing off his knot and flashing Mack a quick smile before going back to his spot on the floor.

Lela popped the lampshade over Mack's head, angling it a little so that she could still see, making Mack let out another sigh. "Great," she said sarcastically, trying to rearrange the lampshade but having to get some help from Brady.

"Mack, who's going next then?" Struts asked nonchalantly, following her comment up by blowing a bubble with her gum.

"Huh?" Mack questioned, still trying to fix the lampshade over her head.

"Since you just took your turn, you get to choose who goes next," Struts explained.

"Oh, alright. Um, I don't know, Lela?" Mack suggested, still rather flustered from trying to move the lamp shade.

"Ok," Lela chirped, leaning into the middle of the circle, where the two bowls were positioned, and picking out a piece of paper. "Truth," she started.

"Ugh," Lugnut scoffed. "Truths are boring."

"Not necessarily," Giggled replied. "You can find out some pretty interesting stuff from truths, you've just got to put the right question down."

"If you were locked in a room with one person here, who do you think that you'd last the longest with?" Lela read out.

"You're not allowed to say Tanner though, that's cheating," CheeChee jumped in, hoping to get a juicy answer out of her fellow biker girl and knowing that just saying Tanner was an easy cop-out.

"Honestly I think I'd last the longest with Mack," Lela answered truthfully, only having to think about the matter for a few moments.

"Aww, thanks Lela," Mack said, her words coming out slight muffled due to the lampshade but at least it still sounded sincere.  
Lela chose Brady to go next, who was dared to try and swallow a tablespoon of flour, which, as you can imagine, didn't go exactly to plan; a lot of coughing and choking ensued and Brady had to spend the next few minutes solidly drinking a glass of water, but at least it had generated a few laughs.

Brady picked Giggles to take her turn next and her truth made her share her boyfriend's worst habit, which Lugnut wasn't particularly thrilled about. And after digging up the dirt, Giggles spilled that she doesn't like when 1. he ruffles her hair when she just got it looking decent, 2. when he doesn't listen to her but pretends that he does, and 3. when he starts causing trouble with rivalling biker gangs out of town.

"Hey, it was one problem, not three," Lugnut huffed, quite clearly not too pleased about the topic of conversation.

"Well at least you know now, honey," Giggles said, giving her boyfriend a small smile, feeling a lot worse about sharing those things than she thought that she would.

Seacat was chosen to go next and was made to wear one of Lela's bras over his Hawaiian shirt for the rest of the game, but Coral took it a step further when she insisted that they stuff it with rolled up socks too, much to everyone's delight, apart from Seacat's.

Seacat selected CheeChee to do a truth next, which required her to spill the details on whether she thought that Seacat would be suitable husband material. It was concluded after a rather detailed ten minute discussion that yes, with a little bit of work, CheeChee would marry Seacat...but definitely in a few years, she was not willing to be tied down just yet. The husband-to-be in question had been scared out of his mind with all of the wedding talk, so he was very relieved when CheeChee said that she didn't want to walk down the aisle yet, at least they could agree on that.

Coral was next to take a dare, which turned out to require her boyfriend, therefore Butchy, to wax her arm, which he didn't seem to willing to do, especially after everything that had happened before the game had begun. But luckily, Coral seemed to have forgiven him easily and didn't even seem that mad anymore.

"Why have I gots to do it?" Butchy asked, kneeling down next to Coral and placing the wax strip onto her arm.

"Because the dare says so and there's no way that I could do it myself," Coral said, not appearing to be nervous about allowing her boyfriend to rip the hairs out of her forearm.

"You ready?" Butchy checked, quickly making eye contact with the surfer girl before focusing back on the tab of the wax strip.

"Just go for-" Coral started, but she was interrupted by Butchy yanking off the plastic strip. "...It," she finished after a pause, rather shocked by how suddenly that had happened. "Ow!" Coral breathed, hissing between her teeth as she pressed on her arm, trying to stop the stinging but still finding the scenario a little bit funny herself.

Butchy mumbled an apology before making his way back to his seat across the circle.

But he didn't quite make it.

No one exactly knows how, but somehow, one persuasive conversation later, Coral and Butchy's roles were reversed and Coral was applying a wax strip to Butchy's leg.

"Wait, wait, wait, I didn't sign up for this," Butchy rambled, having second thoughts about agreeing to take part in this.

"We know, that's why we signed ya up ourselves," CheeChee drawled, following her sentence up with one of her infamous giggles.

"And ya still have to do your own dare after this," Struts added.

"What?!" Butchy exclaimed, finding the whole situation very unfair.

"You ready?" Coral asked, re-enacting what Butchy had said to her only minutes before.

"No! Please be gentle!" Butchy begged, giving up on trying to act tough in front of everyone.

"You can't be gentle when you're pulling off a wax strip, Butchy," Coral explained, not knowing whether she was reassuring the biker boy or making things worse.

"Oh, just get it over with," Butchy groaned, knowing that he couldn't get out of it now. After all, the wax strip was already on his leg. So Coral 'got it over with' and Butchy cursed the house down.

"You need to learn to watch your language, Butchy," Lela scolded, frowning at her older brother.

"Ahhh," Butchy breathed, completely ignoring his little sister and cradling his leg.

"Oh my gosh, look how much hair there is," Giggles marvelled, crowding around Coral, who was inspecting the wax strip for herself.

Coral looked up and saw Butchy furrowing his eyebrows and staring at his leg, quite clearly in a lot of pain. She leaned across to him and gave him a peck on the lips, "Better?" she asked, quirking one of her eyebrows at Butchy, who just shot her a very confused look.

"No!" he cried, looking at his girlfriend like she was crazy, which just set her off laughing even more.

Struts was made to tell a truth next and she revealed that, after a long debate, if she was male then she would probably want to date Giggles, much to the bubbly, fringed-bikini wearing surfer girl's delight.

Lugnut's dare was another one to start up some controversy when he was made to kiss the person directly to his left, which turned out to be Lela.

"No! No way in a million years am I gonna do that," Lugnut protested, refusing all eye contact with the little sister of the Rodents' leader, who was just staring open-mouthed at the biker boy sat beside her, at a loss for words.

"Why not?" Struts asked, playing with a strand of her hair that wasn't backcombed into her beehive.

"'Cause Lela's like a sister to me, I've known her for as long as I can remember! Not to mention that she's Butchy's little sister, I don't want to mess around with that!" Lugnut cried. "Plus, I's got a girlfriend!"

"Come on, everyone else has done their dares," Coral said, stroking the patch of freshly waxed skin on her arm, a not so friendly reminder that she'd completed her's.

"Tanner, Giggles, shield your eyes," Brady chuckled, raising the lampshade that had slowly started to slip down Mack's face, so that she could see what was happening.

And eventually, the pair agreed and the kiss, which didn't even last a second, happened. Both refused to talk about the matter anymore though and they both avoided eye contact for the rest of the evening, freely expressing how uncomfortable it had made them both feel.

Rascal took a truth next, not really expecting what he was getting himself into. "Has anyone ever seen you naked, apart from your family? What?! No!" he shrieked. "What kind of a question is that?!" But he didn't get an answer because pretty much everyone else was roaring with laughter.

Tanner was chosen to take a truth next, which made him admit that yes, he had used a pick up line on a girl before but no, it had not been successful.

"What was it?" Brady asked.

"What was what?" Tanner asked, as clueless as ever.

"What was the pickup line you used?" Brady clarified.

"Yeah come on Tanner, woo Lela with your best flirting tricks," Struts teased, one of the few remaining teens who hadn't been scarred, emotionally or physically, by one of the truths or dares.

"Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?" Tanner started with a husky tone, turning to face Lela and putting on the voice to add to the effect, which just turned out to be rather comical. "Because you're hot," he finished, flashing an extra bright smile at his girlfriend as everyone erupted into laughter.

"Wow," Mack said, her voice dripping with sarcasm from under the lampshade. "I know that I've been attracted, what about you guys?" She continued, earning even more laughs from the others.

"Any more or is that it?" Lela questioned, resting her hands on top of Tanner's and attempting to stifle a giggle as she stared up at him.

"I'm not photographer but I can still picture myself with you," Tanner said with the same husky tone as before, causing the bikers and surfers to laugh even more. "Wait, one more, I saved the best one for last," Tanner said, trying not to laugh himself. He coughed, trying to get his voice right again before saying the last pickup line, "Can I check that your shoes are tied? I can't have you falling for anyone else."

A lot of laughing and teasing later, the game was almost at it's conclusion and Butchy was the only one who hadn't taken part yet.

"Come on, Butchy, let's finish off the game with a dare," Struts said eagerly, her brown eyes sparkling with excitement.

Butchy grumbled something about how he's already technically done a dare earlier but he still took a slip of paper from one of the bowls at the centre of the circle. "Dare: swap clothes with the person opposite you," Butchy read out loud, his eyes moving up from the slip of paper and connecting with the person sat across from him: Giggles. "No," Butchy said flatly.

"Why not?" Struts whined.

"'Cause not only have I got my leg waxed tonight, which is enough of a dare in itself, but now yous is making me swap clothes with a surfer girl," Butchy shot back.

"Butch, we're not stoppin' this game 'til I see you in a frilly, pink bikini," Struts challenged, giving the biker leader a stern look.

With a little bit more persuasion and some plain old fashioned forcing down the stairs, Butchy and Giggles were getting changed in separate rooms with Coral helping to take different items of clothing between the rooms.

"I's gonna rip this, this is such a stupid idea," Butchy complained as Coral waited outside the door.

"What's gonna rip?" Coral called, her back resting against the wood.

"The top," Butchy called back.

"Do you want some help?" Coral asked. "Can I come in?"

"Just open the door, I can't reach it, I think I'm stuck," Butchy called.

"You lose your biker accent a bit when you get frustrated, you know," Coral chuckled as she pushed open the door, not really knowing what she was getting herself into. Butchy was stood in the middle of his bedroom with Giggles' fringed, pink bikini stop around his neck, trying to fit his arms through the appropriate holes; one of his arms was raised up in the air and the other was bent in half, next to his face and he was unable to move either one of them. "Oh," Coral said, trying to stifle a laugh.

"I think I'm gonna rip it if I try and get it any further down," Butchy confessed, attempting to move his arms a little bit as the bikini top made the most horrendous ripping sound.

"That didn't sound too good," Coral said, her eyes wide with surprise.

So after a bit of negotiation from everyone, Butchy and Giggles got back into their own clothes and luckily, Giggles' bikini top was still in tact. However, Butchy wasn't getting out of his dare, he still had to swap clothes with someone, so if it couldn't be Giggles, it had to be something as close to her as possible. Which is why, when the two who had swapped clothes walked back into the attic room, everyone burst out laughing. Coral was stood there in Butchy's signature red t-shirt, blue jeans and black leather vest combo, which all looked far too big for her. And Butchy was stood there in Coral's pastel yellow playsuit, which managed to be too tight for him in all the wrong places, resulting in Butchy trying to cover himself up as much as physically possible.

"One finishing touch," Coral giggled, taking the wreath of yellow flowers off her golden brown curls and sliding it over Butchy's head.

"Awww, Butchy, you look adorable!" Lela squealed, finding the sight in front of her absolutely hilarious.

"Nice look, Boss," Lugnut chuckled, the whole room laughing their heads off. Brady may have even let out a snort at one point.

"And look, it shows off the patch on your leg that you got waxed perfectly!" CheeChee commented, making Seacat and Rascal laugh so much that tears were starting to roll down their faces.

"Can we please go back and get changed now?" Butchy practically begged.

"No way, you've got to walk me home first," Coral said, a smirk playing at her lips.

"Not lookin' like this, I'm not," Butchy argued.

"Well you're not getting your clothes back until you do," Coral giggled, making a break for the door.

"Coral!" Butchy shouted, running after her and bellowing some rather vulgar terms at her, only for them to be returned with laughs and comments like 'ooh, that's not a pretty view' and 'Butchy, pull the shorts down a bit, no one needs to see that!'.

"I guess that concludes game night then," Lela chuckled, barely getting her breath back enough to talk normally. And on that note, everyone started to leave, saying their goodbyes before bounding down the stairs and out of the front door.

Some people had come out of game night better than others, some had had a great evening but others had been put into some rather awkward situations, but overall no one could deny that they'd had tons of fun. It surely was going to be a night to remember.

 **I hope that you liked it! I don't really know how I feel about that one shot, I sort of really like it but then I sort of hate it too. I don't know, let me know what you guys thought of it though!**

 **Feel free to leave me some more suggestions for future one shots too and I'll try to get as many done as I can before I go on holiday on Sunday! Thank you for all of the suggestions so far, I can't wait to write them!**

 **Thank you so much for reading! You guys are amazing!**

 **-cherrygorilla**


	3. Smudged Lipstick (Struts & Lugnut)

**Hello!**

 **So this one shot is based on Owllover34's idea for a Struts & Lugnut one shot. I tried to incorporate both of your ideas so I hope that you like it! **

**(Side note: this is set a few weeks after the events of Teen Beach Movie and the only couples are Lela & Tanner and Struts & Lugnut, everyone else is single. **

**Also, this story does include my OC, Coral, but she doesn't play a huge part in it so it doesn't completely affect the story)**

 **Anyway, here it is!**

The Rodents burst through the doors of Big Momma's like they did every evening, scanning the hangout spot for any possible trouble before sauntering over to their signature spots.

"Where's Lela, Butch?" CheeChee asked nonchalantly, cutting in front of the head of the Rodents, who was currently leading the bikers over to their seats, so that she could hop into the booth first. She took her favourite place immediately, crammed up in the corner with her back up against the wall, perching on the table instead of the leather bench-seat.

"Dunno, she said she was goin' out," Butchy replied, clicking to signal to the rest of his crew, who were still all following him like sheep, that they were free to go, before jumping into the booth next to CheeChee and instantly slouching in his seat.

"I think she had somethin' planned with Tanner," Struts piped up, removing her arm from Lugnut's side before sliding into the other side of the booth.

"Oh great, now she's ditchin' us for some surfer," Butchy grumbled as Lugnut sat down next to Struts opposite him.

"Hey, Lela really likes Tanner, he's not just 'some surfer' to her," Struts said, sticking up for one of her best friends.

"Doesn't mean I gots to like the guy," Butchy shot back, sending Struts a look that indicated that he wasn't really in the mood to talk about his little sister's relationship with a surfer. Although the bikers and surfers weren't constantly at each other's throats anymore, it didn't instantly make them get on perfectly with one another, they were all still trying to get used to it and were trying to build up friendships with the separate gangs. And it didn't really help that Tanner was dating Butchy's littler sister, which was sure to make the Rodent leader a little more defensive around his previous rival.

"Lela and Tanner are in love, Butchy, just accept it," Struts sighed, a dreamy smile spreading across her face as she spoke about romance. "And Lela's your little sister, ya want her to be happy, right?"

"Sure, whatever," Butchy grumbled, rolling his eyes at the biker girl and trying to avoid eye contact with her.

"What's gotten into you two?" Struts asked after a small pause, her eyes flitting from CheeChee to Butchy repeatedly.

"Us? What about yous two?!" CheeChee squeaked, her eyebrows furrowing together as she looked across at Lugnut and Struts. "Ever since you guys started datin' we never get any sense outta either one of ya," she continued, just as a waitress walked over to their table and laid four sodas on the table.

"Yeah, how long have yous two been goin' steady now?" Butchy asked before taking a swig of his soda.

"Almost two weeks," Lugnut replied, wrapping an arm around Struts' shoulders.

"The happiest two weeks of my life," Struts sighed dreamily, snuggling into Lugnut's chest.

"Look, I'm happy for ya and everythin' but now I'm the only single chick 'round here," CheeChee drawled, playing with the straw in her drink with a slight frown on her face.

"Then get flirtin'," Struts chuckled as CheeChee rolled her eyes, but she did spot the biker girl glancing around the restaurant, trying to spot someone who she could reel in.

"I just don't want yous two's romance to get in the way of my crew," Butchy said, yet again looking over at the two Rodents members. "Ya lovey dovey comments are already startin' to make us lose our cool. We gots to keep everyone knowin' that we's still not gonna be ordered around. I don't want no surfers thinkin' we're push overs, this is our joint as much as it is there's."

"Yeah, yeah, yeah," Struts said, sending Butchy an unimpressed look. "Butch, we're not arguin' with 'em anymore, they're our friends, we share Big Momma's with 'em."

"Still doesn't mean I gots to like 'em," Butchy shot back, challenging Struts' look and bringing back his point from earlier. "And no Rodent of mine is gonna like 'em unless they gots to," he continued, watching the three other bikers' expressions as he spoke.

"Relax, Boss, I'm sure they's not as bad as we think they was," Lugnut said, slightly loosening his grip on Struts' shoulder, making her send him a puzzled look, which he unintentionally ignored.

"All surfers is bad," CheeChee muttered, trying to stick to the Rodents' old motto to get on Butchy's good side. But just like Lugnut had done to Struts, Butchy blanked CheeChee.

"Whatcha sayin', Lugnut?" Butchy asked, raising an eyebrow at his right hand man.

"He's sayin' that we should give the surfers a chance," Struts cut in.

"I am?" Lugnut questioned, shooting Struts a questioning look to match his tone.

"He is?" CheeChee and Butchy continued, matching Lugnut's expression but with a slightly angrier side to it.

"Just give 'em a shot, ya might be surprised," Struts said, an embarrassed blush forming on her face from all of the attention she was getting. She silently praying that they wouldn't yell at her, she knew how they all still felt about the surfers and even though she didn't like them at first either, now that she'd secretly been getting to know a few she couldn't believe how friendly they all were. Plus she knew that Lela would appreciate it if she managed to help improve the bikers and surfers' relationship with one another.

"What's with ya changin' your mind?" Butchy asked, frowning at Struts suspiciously, obviously catching on that something was up.

"Nothin' I just think we should get to know 'em a little more before jumpin' to conclusions about 'em," Struts explained, feeling her cheeks burning.

"Are you sayin' we should talk to the surfers?" CheeChee asked, her eyes practically popping out of her head as she stared at her fellow biker girl.

"Maybe," Struts murmured, looking down at her lap as she felt all three biker's eyes burn into her skin.

"Well, if Struts wants to then I's in," Lugnut said, taking one of her hands in his and giving it a squeeze.

"Really?" Struts asked, looking up at Lugnut hopefully.

"Course, sweetie, anything for yous," Lugnut smiled, lightly kissing her forehead.

"You guys are hopeless," CheeChee drawled.

"Come on, Chee, maybe you'll find someone to flirt with," Struts encouraged, knowing that she was sparking the biker girl's interest when she didn't protest.

"Boss?" Lugnut tried as he and Struts sent Butchy equally hopeful looks.

"Alright, but I's not puttin' up with no nonsense," Butchy huffed, starting to rise out of his seat.

"Yay!" Struts squealed, ushering Lugnut out of the biker's booth before grabbing CheeChee's hand to help her hop off the table. Butchy led the three bikers into what had come to be known as 'surfer territory', which turned out to just be the middle of the restaurant. Struts walked straight over to Giggles, who she'd been secretly hanging out with since the surfers and bikers teamed up to destroy the weather machine, with Lugnut firmly at her side, leaving CheeChee and Butchy to mix with the other surfers themselves.

Lela and Tanner returned from their date to find the bikers and surfers more or less getting along, which came as a very welcome surprise for the couple. The night wore on and everyone was having a blast together, something that no one could have imagined happening in a long time. And since Struts had wanted to bring the surfers and bikers together more, you'd expect for her to be having a great time in Big Momma's with everyone. But instead she was sat outside on the porch, by herself, staring into space and watching the moonlight dance on the ocean.

"What yous doin' out here?" a voice piped up, breaking Struts out of her trance.

"Huh?" she murmured, turning her head to locate the source of the voice and locking eyes with a tall boy, whose chocolate brown hair was styled to the perfection. She could feel his hazel eyes trained on her and a smirk played at his lips, he slipped hands into the pockets of his jeans as he leaned against the outside wall of Big Momma's.

"What's a foxy chick like you doin' out here all by herself?" the boy asked, pulling a chair out from the table Struts was sat at before turning it around and sitting on it backwards.

"Just thinkin'," Struts replied, which wasn't a lie, she'd escaped the party scene to have some time to herself, because for some reason she felt like she needed to clear her head.

"About?" the boy prompted, sending Struts an expectant glance.

"None of your business, Jax," Struts snapped, wanting to be left alone.

"I was only tryin' to help," Jax replied, holding his hands up in defence.

"Sorry, I'm just not feelin' like myself today," Struts admitted, her face falling once she realised how harsh she had been.

"Why? You was fine a few minutes ago back in there," Jax said, jabbing his thumb in the direction of Big Momma's.

"I know," Struts sighed, a forlorn look spreading across her face.

"You sure nothin's wrong?" Jax asked, surprisingly concerned for the biker girl's well-being. Struts shook her head, but she couldn't bring herself to admit what was bothering her. It had come over her so quickly that she'd been thrown into a panic and had bolted for the door. "Hey, don't get upset about it," Jax continued, noticing that Struts was a lot more upset than he'd ever seen her. "You know I'd help but I's got no idea what's wrong."

"It's Lugnut," Struts blurted, feeling extremely guilty as soon as she'd spoken.

"Lugnut? What's he done?" Jax asked, admittedly shocked at Struts confession.

"Nothing," Struts reassured, regretting saying her worries out loud because now they seemed all the more real. "I just…ugh, I don't know," Struts sighed, putting her head in her hands. The truth was that Struts was very paranoid about her relationship with Lugnut and she had been for a few days now. She had a feeling that Lugnut wasn't as interested in her as she was with him, and his actions tonight had backed up her theory: the way that he'd loosened his grip on her shoulder, the way that the kiss he planted on her forehead seemed more forced than usual and the squeeze of her hand that didn't feel reassuring, it felt more possessive. Was it possible that their romance was already falling apart?

"Listen, Lugnut'd be crazy not to like a girl like you," Jax started, making Struts look up from her hands and lock eyes with him for the second time that evening. "He doesn't realise how lucky he is, yous is a beautiful girl with a beautiful personality and he's got no reason not to love you, Struts. No one does."

Jax had a crush on Struts. It was plain to see, but not so plain for Struts. The biker girl merely thought that Jax was trying to cheer her up, which she was very glad of. But whether they wanted what came next to happen or not, there was no stopping it.

Neither one knew how they'd ended up that way, but within a matter of seconds Struts was pressed up against the wall of Big Momma's, her lips pressed against Jax's in a surprisingly heated make-out session. It took a while but eventually Struts' senses came flooding back to her and the logical side of her brain kicked in, forcing her to push Jax away from her. Her bright pink lipstick was smudged across Jax's lips and his hair looked a lot untidier than when she'd first encountered him that evening, so she could only imagine how she looked.

"Wha-what just happened?" Struts murmured with her eyes wide and her mouth hanging open in shock. Jax's mouth kept opening and closing, like he was trying to say something, but no words were coming out. "I can't believe I just…I would never…" Struts continued, her eyes clouding with tears as the guilt of what she'd just done overwhelmed her. "We can't speak of this," Struts said sternly, suddenly regained her composure and staring directly at Jax, who just nodded in agreement. "Don't tell anyone," Struts ordered. "Promise?"

"Promise," Jax agreed, trying to wipe some of Struts' lipstick off and fix his hair before going anywhere near the doors of Big Momma's again. Struts stayed quiet and avoided eye contact with the biker boy for the next few minutes until he eventually ventured back inside, now looking more or less back to normal. The pair shared one final guilty look before Jax pushed the doors open and disappeared into the crowds inside Big Momma's, leaving a rather distraught Struts left alone on the balcony.

At least she thought that she was alone.

"Uh, Struts, aren't you dating Lugnut?" a very familiar voice sounded from the bottom of the steps that led up to the beach hangout.

Struts whirled around to face the person who had spoken, who, to her horror, turned out to be none other than Tanner. "Tanner…I…" Struts trailed off, feeling like she'd been caught like a deer in headlights.

"Did you break up with him?" Tanner questioned, unsure of what to make of everything that he'd just witnessed between Jax and Struts.

"No," Struts said, the same panicked look covering her face as she shook her head, the ringlets of brown hair that didn't fit into her beehive bouncing at the sides of her head.

"Then…what was that?" Tanner asked cautiously, not really knowing if he should be intruding on her personal problems, she was a biker after all.

"Tanner," Struts started, hurrying down the steps and over to the head of the surfers, gripping his arms with her hands and looking desperately into his eyes. "Please, I'm begging you, don't let anyone know what just happened," Struts pressed, completely distraught. "It'll ruin everything and I care too much about Lugnut to ever do that to him," she babbled, watching with dismay as Tanner's brow furrowed.

"But…you kinda just did, Struts," Tanner said awkwardly, feeling uncomfortable with how distressed Struts was.

"Tanner, I don't know what just happened there but I know one thing for sure, I didn't start that kiss, you've gotta believe me," Struts begged, telling herself just as much as she was telling Tanner.

"Ok, I do," Tanner said, slowly nodding at the biker girl.

Struts let out a sigh of relief and moved her hands away from Tanner's arms. "Thanks," she said. "I owe you one. So this is just stayin' a secret between us twos?" Struts checked.

"Secret?" Tanner questioned, a slightly nervous edge to his voice as he rubbed the back of his neck.

Struts nodded, opening her mouth to say something but being cut off by a voice behind her.

"Struts, whatcha still doin' out here?"

It was CheeChee.

"We's thinkin' of headin' out, you comin' with us?"

And Butchy.

"You ok, babe?"

Lugnut. She was going to have to face Lugnut too and act like nothing had happened.

"Please?" Struts mouthed to Tanner, keeping her back to the bikers. Tanner took a few seconds to make up his mind but in the end gave one small nod to Struts, keeping it subtle so that the bikers wouldn't think that anything was suspicious. "Thank you," Struts mouthed, having to resist the urge to hug the tanned surfer boy before turning and racing back over to the other members of the Rodents.

But Tanner knew how bad he was at keeping secrets and he couldn't help but feel like he'd bitten off more than he could chew with this attempt, Struts' relationship was on the line after all and he really didn't want to blow this for her. So this was going to be tough.

-The Next Day-

The surfers were hanging out in Big Momma's after a long day of riding the waves, so they weren't exactly prepared for the bikers to burst in on their session of down-time.

"Oh, hey cats," Seacat greeted, giving the biker crew a slightly awkward wave as they strolled into the beach hangout, minus a key member from yesterday's events; Struts.

"Nope, nope, nope, nope," Tanner mumbled, suddenly becoming very nervous around the bikers.

"What?" Coral questioned, turning to face her twin brother after hearing him speak.

"Nope, nope, nope, nope, nope, nope, nope," Tanner continued, starting to walk to the other side of the room from the bikers.

"Nope, nope, nope? Oh my gosh! You know something!" Coral gasped after she realised what her brother was doing. Coral could read Tanner like a book, and vice versa, it came from them being twins, and when Tanner was hiding a secret he had some definite giveaways. And repeatedly saying 'nope' was one of them. "What is it?" she asked, starting to follow him.

"Nope, can't tell you," Tanner mumbled, trying his hardest to stay focused on not spilling the details of Struts' little 'mistake'.

"Why? Is it something juicy?" Coral asked, getting excited at the prospect of her brother having some gossip for her.

"Nope, nope, nope," Tanner said, starting up his mumbling again.

"What's up with ya man, Lela?" CheeChee drawled, picking up on Tanner's odd behaviour from across the restaurant.

"I don't know," Lela replied, innocently skipping over to Tanner to see if she could find out, not knowing that the other bikers were all following her. "What's up, honey?" Lela asked the surfer boy, making his eyes fly open wide when he saw the crowd of bikers, the people he'd been trying to avoid all day, stood behind his girlfriend.

"Nope, nope, nope, nope," Tanner started to mumble yet again. "Can't say it."

"Can't say what?" Lela asked.

"You keepin' somethin' from us?" CheeChee asked, raising an eyebrow at Tanner.

"Nope," Tanner squeaked, finding it harder than ever to stay quiet.

"He is!" CheeChee gasped, her face lighting up with a mischievous smile as she picked up on Tanner's nervous body language. "Is it about Struts? You were talkin' to her last night before we left," CheeChee asked, hoping to get some details just as much as Coral.

"Nope, I don't know what you're talking about," Tanner said, sending the bikers a forced smile that ended up looking more like a grimace.

"Listen, man, if it's anythin' 'bout my girl then you'd better tell me," Lugnut said, jabbing Tanner in the middle of his chest with his forefinger. "I don't want no trouble with you but if she's in any and yous is not tellin' me then-" Lugnut threatened, getting incredible defensive about his girlfriend.

But he didn't need to pressure any more after that, because Tanner ended up fessing up from all the pressure. "Jax kissed Struts out on the porch."

"What?" Lugnut said, surprisingly quietly considering how angry he looked. Tanner backed away a bit, as did Coral, both of the surfers going back to their group to give the bikers some space. "You did what?" Lugnut repeated, this time aiming his statement at Jax himself now, who looked petrified.

"I swear it was nothin'," Jax said, taking a step back from Lugnut, who took a step towards him.

"Oh really?" Lugnut questioned, his voice wavering slightly with rage.

"I'm sorry, man," Jax said, praying that the other biker boy would take his apology.

"You don't sound very sorry to me," Lugnut snarled, giving Jax a shove.

"Woah, man, chill," Jax said, his voice showing how worried he was when he started to stutter.

"No, I's not gonna chill," Lugnut shouted, pushing Jax again.

"I didn't mean no trouble, Lugnut," Jax started, but Lugnut cut him off again.

"You didn't mean no trouble?! You kissed my girlfriend!" Lugnut bellowed in disbelief, finally losing his temper with the biker boy and launching at him. Jax took at least a few good hits from Lugnut before Butchy finally managed to separate the two with the help of a couple of other Rodents members.

"Calm down, man," Butchy tried, holding Lugnut back by the shoulders and blocking his view of Jax, hoping that Lugnut would cool off a bit.

"What's got into you lately?" CheeChee huffed, half-sat on a nearby table from having to dodge one of Lugnut's rouge punches.

With all of the commotion and the aftermath of the fight in Big Momma's, no one noticed two girls walking in. So what they saw happening before them was quite a shock. But even though everyone had been talking at once, everyone fell silent when they noticed who had appeared at the entrance.

"Lugnut?" Struts questioned, her voice barely louder than a whisper as she stood, frozen beside Giggles, who she had been spending the afternoon with, by the doors of the beach restaurant.

"Struts...I...uh..." Lugnut said, instantly crashing down from his fit of anger and looking extremely guilty.

Struts finally found the will in her to move her legs, taking shaky steps forwards until she was face to face with the biker boy. "I think wes should talk," she said, her voice cracking and wavering as her trembling hands reached up to smooth down the collar of his leather jacket.

Lugnut nodded and the crowd of bikers and surfer silently parted so that the couple could make their way to the doors. But as soon as the doors closed, everyone broke out into noisy chatter again, frantically discussing what had just happened.

Once Struts and Lugnut were out on the porch alone they stood side by side, staring straight ahead out at the ocean, avoiding eye contact with each other. They stayed this way for a few minutes, thinking things through before they eventually broke the silence.

"I'm sorry," they both said in unison, not even looking at each other until they'd spoken. "What do you have to be sorry for?" they continued, once again both talking at the same time.

The two bikers each let out a soft, uneasy chuckle before Lugnut said, "Ladies first."

"I...I'm sorry about the whole thing with Jax," Struts stuttered, watching with dismay as Lugnut's jaw clenched and he broke eye contact with her at the mention of her affair partner. "It was a mistake and I didn't start it, I swear. Lugnut, honey, you gotta believe me, I'd never do anything like that to you," Struts confessed, cupping the biker boy's chin in her hands and turning his face in her direction.

"But you did," Lugnut muttered, his eyes refusing to meet her gaze.

"I know," Struts said, nodding weakly as her voice fell to a whisper and her eyes brimmed with tears. "And that's the worst part, I can't handle the guilt 'cause I feel so bad."

Lugnut didn't respond and at that moment, Struts felt like she's ruined everything between her and the biker boy who had stolen her heart, she doubted that they could even go back to just being friends now.

"I's sorry too," Lugnut sighed after a couple of minutes of silence had passed.

"What?" Struts sniffed, hardly believing what she'd just heard.

"I's sorry for overreacting 'bout you and Jax, I shouldn't 'a done that in there," Lugnut admitted, finding it a little bit harder than he thought that he would considering that he's not usually a violent person and he can calm down almost instantly after a confrontation.

Struts gently shook her head, a teary smile spreading across her face. "No, you had every right to be mad. Well, _have_ every right to be mad," she said, correcting herself halfway through her sentence. "I just didn't want us to end it so early on," Struts said, her voice faltering as she spoke about their imminent break up.

"You didn't want what to end? Us? We's not endin' it, are we?" Lugnut questioned, puzzled at the biker girl's latest statement.

"Well, I thought wes would be, I thought I'd blown it for us," Struts confessed, more than a little surprised when Lugnut laughed in her face after she spoke.

"You think I'd let yous go that easily after all the trouble I went through to be ya boyfriend?" Lugnut chuckled, taking Struts' hands in his.

She shook her head with a small smile, trying to blink away the tears that had been preparing to fall. "You were too scared to admit that you liked me," Struts recalled from the story that Lugnut had told her a few nights ago, about how he had tried for months to pluck up the courage to ask her out, coming up with a million ideas on how to execute it but never actually following through with any of them. Eventually though, Struts had shown a mild interest in the Rodents member and Lugnut decided to take his chance and run with it, even if it did mean ripping Struts away from her dance partner to tell her how he felt. It was there, in the middle of the dance floor at Big Momma's, that the pair had come to terms with their feelings for each other and had made a pact to give the relationship a try, and ever since then it had been bliss, until now.

"Listen, Struts, we's gonna get over this," Lugnut started, wiping away a stray tear that was starting to roll down Struts' face with his thumb. No matter how hard she had been trying to prevent them from falling, Struts' tears that she'd been holding in were silently starting to slide down her cheeks, only for Lugnut to gently brush them away. "I care 'bout you too much to watch ya slip away over somethin' as stupid as this."

"Me too," Struts agreed. "It was a mistake and that's all it's ever gonna be 'cause my heart belongs to you."

"Well I'm glad to hear that," Lugnut said, finally cracking a genuine smile. "I love you," he said, taking his hands away from Struts' cheeks and moving them down to her waist.

"I love you too," Struts replied, wrapping her arms around the base of Lugnut's neck, bringing him even closer to her as their lips touched. Their kiss was relatively short and when they stopped they locked eyes and let their smiles spread across their previously connected lips. One kiss was enough for forgiveness, but not enough for satisfying their consciences. So that's why they went back for more, and more, and more. Each kiss another step in proving their love for each other.

Now it was Lugnut's turn to be smudging his girlfriend's lisptick, and rightfully so.

 **Sorry that this sucked a bit, I hope that I didn't ruin your idea for you, Owllover34. I read all of your suggestions and watched the video clip and tried to make it as accurate to what you wanted as possible. I don't know if I succeeded though, but I did my best!**

 **I'm not usually one for excuses but I'me sorry if the start of this is a bit rubbish, I was writing that this morning and I had a little incident so it might not be my best writing. I felt really dizzy and sick so I had to take a break and I didn't feel right for about an hour so this story might also seem a bit rushed, so I apologise for that too.**

 **I want to thank you all again for your reviews and constant support with this story because it really does mean the world to me!**

 **And I also wanted to let Guest know that I will be working on your Butchy & Lela one shot idea tomorrow. If I don't get it finished though I'll try and work on it on the plane on Sunday and then post it when I get wifi at my hotel on Sunday. I just wanted to let you know that I will write it, I promise! :) **

**Let me know what you thought of this story because I always love to read your opinions on my writing, it helps me to improve!**

 **Thank you for reading!**

 **-cherrygorilla**


	4. Quick Message (Sorry!)

**Hello!**

 **I'm finally back! I'm so sorry that I haven't been posting any new chapters over the past two weeks, it was because I was away on holiday, plus I only arrived back home yesterday and since then I've been super tired and jet-lagged.**

 **Anyway, some of you have noticed that although I haven't been posting any chapters, I have been online reviewing stories and replying to PMS, and you've been confused as to why I haven't put up a new one shot in such a long time. Well, although I had wifi and access to the website, I didn't have time in my days to write any new one shots, so I apologise for the lack of stories, I'm back home now, which means that I can write properly again and get back to posting more frequently. :)**

 **Also, I just wanted to let you all know that I got to watch Teen Beach 2 when I was away, so now I'll be able to go back through all of the stories that are themed around the film's sequel and leave reviews. I'm sorry that I couldn't before, I just didn't want anything to be spoilt for me. And I know that there have been a lot of mixed opinions about the sequel but I personally loved it! It was a totally different kind of story to the first one, in my opinion, so I don't think that I can really compare them, but I thought that it was great. Yes the ending was a little bit strange but I think that it was cool, so I don't really have any complaints for it. What did you think? Let me know!**

 **Another thing that I picked up on whilst I was on holiday was that a number of new people to my stories (I'm not certain if you're new readers, I'm just saying that because you haven't reviewed my stories before) dislike my OC: Coral. I completely respect your opinion if you just generally don't like her as a character or if you don't like OCs, but since I'm not going to be including her in any of these one-shots (unless the person who came up with an idea for a story wants me to) I decided that now would be a good time to fix her flaws. I don't want her presence in a story to spoil it for people who don't like her so if there is something(s) that you want to change about her then let me know! These changes will be carried out into my other stories that I'm continuing too, not just this one. So fire away! Let's make it 'Hate On Coral Day'! Let me know what differences you'd like to see in her as a character in a review or a PM (if you'd prefer to do it that way). I want to hear what you don't like about her so be as brutally honest as you like! Let me hear the hate on Coral!**

 **I promise that I'm working on the next one shot (a bikers/Lela and Butchy sibling story) but I don't think that I'm going to be able to fully finish it today, so I thought that I'd let you know in advance and not leave you in the dark any longer. It'll be up within a day or two but I didn't want to rush it just for the sake of posting it. I always like to be content with my stories before I post them so I'm sorry if you were disappointed, it'll definitely be up at some point this week, hopefully tomorrow! :)**

 **I know that I've said a lot in this update but I think that's everything that I needed to say. So I guess that I'll see you next chapter with my next one shot: Family Matters! Don't forget to leave a review!**

 **Thank you for being faithful readers!**

 **-cherrygorilla**

 **-cherrygorilla**


	5. Family Matters (Lela & Butchy)

**Hello!**

 **I finally finished this one-shot! Yay! I never thought I'd get it done! I guess I'm just getting used to writing again since I've had a two week break from it. Anyway, this one-shot is supposed to be mainly focused on Lela & Butchy's relationship as siblings. Thank you to Guest and hungryhipposlol for suggesting that I do a Lela and Butchy one-shot, this is for you so I hope that you like it! **

**Also, hungryhipposlol, I'm sorry but I've never seen My Little Pony, so I don't think that I'd be able to do your idea justice. I'm really sorry. :/**

 **I'll admit it now, I preferred this one-shot a whole lot more when I was writing it than when I read it back through, so I apologise if it's terrible! I tried my best!**

"So she's flaked out on us again, huh?" Struts piped up, twizzling a strand of chocolate brown hair around her finger. The pink stiletto wearing biker girl had broken the silence that had been looming over the bikers' signature booth for pretty much the whole evening. The 'she' in question was none other than the 'Queen of the Beach' herself: Lela. Ever since the movie had changed, Lela had pretty much forgotten about all of her old friends, she was always too busy trying to make new ones with the recent additions to the film's cast. Although the new recruits didn't have huge roles, mainly they were just extras and back-up dancers, Lela had insisted on making them feel welcome. As the lead bikers of the Rodents sat in their usual spot, they all looked across at their fellow biker girl, if you could even consider her that any more. Lela was chattering away with a group of new surfers, a few bikers tagging along but with the majority being surfers, who had barely gotten enough sand between their toes to consider themselves residents at the beach hangout spot. The group burst out into cackling laughter upon something that Lela had said, making the raven haired girl's pink painted lips curl into a smug grin. The ten or so new bikers and surfers were hanging on every word that passed Lela's lips and showering her with compliments, almost obsessed with attempting to become friends with the most popular girl on the beach. And with all of this new attention that Lela was getting, it seemed like she was forgetting about the people who had been her friends from the very beginning.

"We better start gettin' used to it, 'cause it doesn't look like she's comin' back over here any time soon," CheeChee said, playing with the straw in her bottle of soda, spinning it repeatedly between two of her fingers.

"What should we do, Boss?" Lugnut asked, looking over at Butchy for some sort of guidance, but the biker boy he was talking to just glanced up at Lela before looking down at his drink again.

"How should I know?" Butchy huffed, pushing his bottle of soda away from him.

"But you's the boss, Boss," Lugnut said, creasing his eyebrows together and sending Butchy a confused look.

"Try tellin' that to Lela, she doesn't listen to a thing we say anymore," Butchy grumbled, quickly looking up at his little sister again before his eyes returned their gaze to the wooden table top.

"He's got a point there, Lugnut," CheeChee said, sitting up straighter and taking a nail file out of the pocket of her leather jacket.

"Well what's her problem anyway?" Lugnut asked, looking over his shoulder at Lela, who was still basking in her new popularity. "It's like we's invisible or somethin'."

"Ooh, look. Maybe Tanner can talk some sense into her," Struts gasped, her interest in the situation perking up once she saw that Lela's boyfriend was getting involved. Lately Tanner had been the only member of the original cast that Lela would socialize with; if any of the others had asked her she'd just make an excuse about welcoming the new people. But you'd think that after two weeks they'd be settled in enough. So the bikers and a few of the surfers, who had been close friends with Lela, could only communicate with her through Tanner, and that had started to show signs of fading out too. Right now, they didn't have an alternative either so they were losing hope.

Tanner got up from his chair and started to make his way over to the crowd of people at the table near to door knowing that the surfers' eyes from the table that he had been sat at were all trained on him, however he was unaware of the added pressure from the booth of bikers that were also watching every move that he made. Tanner was able squeeze through a gap in the crowd before lightly tapping Lela on the shoulder, he just about managed to keep a smile on his face as his girlfriend turned to him despite the mess of knots in the pit of his stomach. "Uh, hey, Lela," Tanner started, letting out a small laugh to try and calm himself down a bit. "Do you mind if I-"

"Tanner, I'm busy," Lela cut off, shocked that her boyfriend would interrupt her at a time like this, although she had just interrupted him herself.

"I know, I can see that, but, Sweetie, I was just wondering-" Tanner tried again, trying not to let Lela's expression bother him.

But once more, Lela cut in. "What? Just say it, Tanner. I'm in the middle of something here," she snapped, motioning the crowd of people behind her.

"I know that you've wanted to do that 'date' thing that Mack and Brady told us about for a while now and I thought that now would-" Tanner explained, hoping that Lela couldn't sense how nervous he actually was. It was even hard to come to terms with it himself, he was Tanner after all, and he didn't get nervous over anything, at least he didn't think that he did. But he'd never had anything to be nervous about before.

"Now? But I'm talking to-" Lela asked, staring at her boyfriend in disbelief, hardly able to believe that he had just suggested that she ditch her new friends.

"I know, it's just that I've got everything set up out-" Tanner tried again, placing a hand one hand on Lela's shoulder and his other on her forearm, already attempting to steer her towards the doors of Big Momma's.

"Tanner! What part of 'I'm busy' don't you understand?!" Lela practically screamed, plunging the entire restaurant into a stunned silence. Lela had never lost her temper like this before; no one even knew that the usually mild-mannered girl had a temper for heaven's sake. "Can't it wait?!" she continued, letting every biker and surfer know just how appalled she was that Tanner couldn't accept that there were more important things that she had to do than hang around with him all the time with just her expression. Everyone was completely horrified at Lela's outburst, especially since it was aimed at the one person she was closest to: Tanner.

Speaking of Tanner, he was pretty much the only person in the whole room who was able to hold himself together. While everyone else's mouths were hanging open and their eyes were popping out of their heads, Tanner just held Lela's gaze and kept a neutral expression. His brain was slowly trying to process what had just happened, after all, it didn't normally do much thinking, and in the end he swallowed and let his eyes fall to the floor for a few seconds, his hand slipping away from her forearm, but his other hand staying on her shoulder. "Yeah, it can wait," Tanner sighed, still looking down at the floor. After he'd spoken he lifted his head, letting his eyes lock with Lela's again. He'd taken the time staring at the ground to compose himself again, not wanting to show Lela how much her comment had hurt him since he didn't want to upset her even more, so now when he looked at her again he managed to force a smile onto his face, although it wasn't as dazzling as usual. "Anything for you, Lela," he said, a little bit quieter than his first comment. He gave Lela's shoulder a reassuring squeeze, held her gaze for a second longer before turning on his heels and walking back over to the table of stunned surfers, who instantly all crowded around him. It took a few seconds for everything that had just happened to settle in, but in a matter of moments everyone all over the restaurant began talking for once, apart from Lela, who had just been hit with the reality of what she'd done. But before her concerns could be fully processed, everything had been smoothed over and she'd been reassured that she'd done nothing wrong by her new 'friends'. So the whole scenario escaped her mind, along with her worries about the moment.

"Oh, Tanner," Giggles cooed, the first one of the surfers to snap out of their state of shock as she rushed over to the leading male and enveloped him in a reassuring hug. Giggles had always been a very affectionate person; everyone on the beach knew this, so it wasn't out of character for her to be giving out hugs, especially when people really needed them.

"Hey, dude, at least you tried," Seacat said, walking over to where Tanner and Giggles were stood along with a handful of other surfers.

"I don't understand…did I do something wrong? Is that why she's upset with me?" Tanner asked, looking extremely lost, like he didn't know what to do with himself anymore. After all, his role in the movie was to dote on Lela, so now that she'd shunned him too, he had no purpose.

"No, of course not, Tanner," Giggles reassured, breaking away from their hug and gently laying her hands on his arm. "You didn't do anything wrong."

"The only one who's done somethin' wrong is my sister," Butchy piped up, making his way over to the small crowd of surfers with Lugnut, CheeChee and Struts on his tail. "I don't know what's got into her lately."

"I never intended to hurt her," Tanner murmured to himself, not realising that other people were listening to him, too caught up in his thoughts about Lela's feelings to pay attention to anyone else. He barely even took notice of the fact that he was thinking about someone other than himself again, it seemed to be happening a lot lately.

"Believe me, Tanner. She just shook you up a lot more than you're ever gonna do to her, there's no need for you to be apologisin'," Struts drawled, following her comment up by blowing a bubble with her gum.

"Lela had no reason to talk to you like that, you were being really nice to her," Giggles added, hoping to instil some confidence back into the head surfer.

"You got nothin' to worry 'bout," CheeChee commented, pocketing her nail file and crossing her arms. "Apart from your girlfriend's behaviour issues, that is."

"Ever since Lela started getting more popular and taking charge of stuff, she's started being really rude to all of us," Seacat said.

"Lela's started being really rude to us," Rascal echoed, showing in his own way that he agreed with everyone.

"So what are we gonna do about it?" Lugnut asked, straightening his leather jacket and looking at each teen in turn, searching for some sort of sign that one of them had a plan.

"I honestly don't know," Butchy sighed, glancing over at his sister, who was already smiling again as she entertained the crowd of people surrounding her. Had they really lost the Queen of the Beach to the new kids?

* * *

The surfers and bikers chose to ignore Lela for the rest of the evening, deciding that staying out of her way was easier than causing more trouble by trying to talk to her. Although the teens tried to keep in high spirits, there was still an uneasy feeling lingering from earlier. Lela had completely turned their lives upside down; it was almost like they felt like they didn't have a reason to be there anymore. Was it possible that Lela didn't want or need them anymore? Because it certainly felt like that to them. Tanner trudged past Lela's clan of avid listeners with Seacat and Rascal, avoiding any eye contact with the girl as they made their way outside. They had eventually realised that Lela wouldn't be joining Tanner for a 'date' so it was probably a good idea to go and clear everything up from outside. It wasn't long after the three surfer boys left that the bikers decided to go as well, but not without notifying Lela first.

"Hey, sis," Butchy said, catching Lela's attention pretty quickly despite not raising his voice. "We's headin' out, we'll see you tomorrow." And with that quick comment, the bikers were pretty much out the door, all of them acting a lot more subdued than normal.

"Wait," Lela piped up, stepping out of the circle of new kids and over to where her brother was stood with Lugnut, CheeChee and Struts. "You're leaving, just like that? I thought you guys were coming to my sleepover tonight," Lela continued, looking over at Struts and CheeChee with a puzzled expression.

"We didn't get an invitation; this is the first time you's spoken to us in a week," Struts said.

"But I just assumed that you'd be coming, you guys always come over," Lela replied, her eyes moving from CheeChee to Struts and back again in bewilderment.

"Yeah, but you's been hangin' out with your new friends a lot more than us lately," CheeChee said, feeling more than a little bit uncomfortable as she targeted the problem revolving around Lela. "So…"

"Plus we've already got plans for tonight," Struts added, forcing a rather awkward smile onto her face.

"Plans? What on earth do you have plans for that's more important than this?" Lela asked, dumbfounded that the two biker girls weren't jumping at the chance to spend the evening with her, unlike her new friends.

"We're goin' over to Giggles' place," Struts answered. And at the mention of her name, Giggles went bounding over to stand with the two biker girls, an excitable grin spreading across her face as she waved at Lela.

"Yeah, we're gonna teach her how to tease her hair," CheeChee continued, adding one of her signature giggles to the end of her comment.

"Oh…" Lela sighed, her eyes scanning the five people in front of her. "Well, I guess I'll just head over to Patsy's house then…see you all tomorrow…" she trailed off, a little bit puzzled by their behaviour. Why didn't they want to spend time with her? Couldn't they have cancelled their plans with Giggles to hang out with her? Or bring Giggles along to her place? Lela frowned a little as she watched them leave the beach hangout spot, but just like earlier on after what had happened with Tanner, her new friends all rushed to calm her nerves and smooth everything over again. She had no idea that she was slowly but surely bringing her friends down to build herself up.

* * *

Butchy was sat at home by himself, stretched out on the sofa, flicking through a magazine about motorcycles when he heard the front door click. He looked up and saw Lela quietly pushing open the door, she then proceeded to slip off her magenta leather jacket and sling it over the banister. He sighed and went back to staring at the page of motorcycle parts in front of him, debating which exhaust pipe would look better on his bike. When it didn't seem like Lela was going to say anything to him, he decided to speak up. Things needed sorting out with Lela's attitude towards him and her friends, and if she couldn't even listen to Tanner anymore then some sort of action needed to be taken. "What are you doing here?" he called, although he wasn't looking at his sister when he spoke, he was still focusing on the images of motors in front of him.

"What are you talking about? I live here don't I?" Lela said with a slightly humoured edge to her voice, almost like Butchy's comment had been a joke that she was playing along with.

"Yeah, I just thought you was goin' to Patsy's house," Butchy replied, nonchalantly flicking the page of the magazine over and keeping a bored expression to his voice.

"I was…but something came up," Lela answered, finally sensing that something didn't seem right. She picked up her leather jacket from the banister and held it in her arms as she wandered over to the sofa, trying to think of anything that could possibly have upset her older brother as she stared at his profile.

"What a surprise," Butchy muttered under his breath, not quite loud enough for Lela to hear what he'd said, but loud enough for her to tell that he'd said something.

"What was that?" Lela questioned, stopping in her tracks for a second and tilting her head to the side, picking up from the tone of his voice that it certainly hadn't been anything positive.

Butchy turned to face Lela, wearing a clearly unimpressed but otherwise unreadable expression before putting on an obnoxiously fake smile. "Nothing," he sighed, before slouching in his seat once more and turning the page of his magazine.

"Is there something wrong, Butchy?" Lela asked, laying her leather jacket over the back of the sofa and slowly walking around to the other side.

"Not in your mind," Butchy huffed, not taking his eyes away from the magazine pages as Lela made her way over to the space beside him on the sofa.

"What?" Lela questioned, gingerly lowering herself into a sitting position next to her brother, trying to work out why he was acting to closed off around her.

"Isn't it a shame when someone ditches you?" Butchy sighed, feeling like he was giving his sister a very big hint as to why he was treating her like he was, but apparently it wasn't clear enough for Lela.

"What are you talking about? Patsy didn't ditch me; something just came up for her. What's your problem?" Lela asked, suddenly getting defensive over her new friend.

"What's _my_ problem? Are you serious?" Butchy exclaimed, done with playing it cool, he was losing his patience with Lela and how carelessly she was treating everyone and he needed to tell her now because things would only get worse if he didn't.

"Yes, what's gotten into you lately?" Lela asked, frowning at her brother for not taking her seriously. But now that she'd started, everything else that she'd been bottling up came spilling out. "It's not just you though, it's everyone else. It's Struts, CheeChee, Lugnut, Seacat, Giggles and Rascal, all of you keep avoiding me. Even Tanner now, what's going on with you all? It's like you don't want to hang out with me or something."

"You's got no clue, do you?" Butchy asked, a tiny laugh escaping his mouth because the fact that Lela was acting so insensitive to the people that she was close to and didn't see anything wrong with it was almost comical.

"A clue about what?!" Lela cried, getting up from the sofa and stepping to the side. "I just want to know why you don't hang out with me anymore. I don't understand it. Everyone wants to hang out with me, so what's _your_ problem? Why have you decided to avoid me all of a sudden? I'm the queen of the beach! You should be begging for my attention!"

"Lela, do you hear yourself?!" Butchy said, standing up to face his sister. "Ever since you started changing things 'round here your head's gotten bigger that CheeChee's hair!"

"Are you saying that you're all avoiding me because I made things better?" Lela questioned, finding what her brother was implying hard to process.

"Just 'cause things are goin' your way, doesn't mean that they're better," Butchy said, squaring up to Lela so that they were both staring each other down.

"But I'm finally happy, Butchy. Can't you accept that and just be happy for me?" Lela demanded, not understanding why it was so hard for her brother to see that things were finally looking up.

"Not if it's hurtin' everyone else, Sis," Butchy shot back, not stepping down until Lela could see his side of things.

"Who's it hurting? I made it my story, I did what made me happy," Lela argued.

"But, Lela, have you thought about how it's affecting other people?" Butchy asked, getting to the point that he'd wanted to bring to her attention for days on end.

"What do you mean? Isn't it important for me to make it my story? I don't want to be living in a world where I can't decide my own future, this is what's right," Lela said firmly.

"Yeah, it's important for you to be happy, sis. But not if it's makin' everyone else _un_ happy," Butchy barked, fed up of his sister's self-centred opinions. "You can't see how it's affecting your friends, Lela, 'cause you're too busy tryin' to make things right for you. You couldn't care less what happened to us."

"What are you talking about?" Lela cried, getting more and more frustrated that Butchy wasn't supporting her with her choices.

"I'm talkin' about how you never sit with us anymore, how you ignore me and Lugnut, how you pretend as if Seacat and Rascal don't exist, how you've completely forgotten about gettin' to know Giggles more, how you never invite CheeChee and Struts to hang out with you anymore and most of all, how you've now started ditchin' Tanner, the boy who you claim that you're meant to be with, for your new 'friends'. We've picked up on how you keep blowin' us off, Lela, it's not like it was gonna go unnoticed," Butchy raged, all of his pent up anger towards his sister's attitude bursting out. "It's like we's not good enough for you anymore, everyone keeps thinkin' they've done somethin' for you to stop likin' 'em. Tanner was tearin' himself apart tonight after you told him get away from you."

"I didn't say that," Lela replied slowly and quietly, letting everything that Butchy was saying to her sink in.

"Not exactly, but it's what you were implyin'," Butchy argued.

"Since when have you started caring about how Tanner feels anyway?" Lela asked, crossing her arms over her chest defensively. "You hated me and Tanner being together."

"'Cause I was still mad about you breakin' the rules," Butchy explained, his anger coming through in the way that his voice raised in volume. "You specifically knew not to socialize with the surfers but you still kept going back to him."

"And look where that got us, Butchy. Things are so much better now," Lela said, sticking up for her relationship with the head surfer. "There's no more fighting thanks to Tanner and I."

"I know, just let me finish!" Butchy snapped, losing his patience with his little sister. "So yes, arguin' with the surfers was a mistake, I realised that and I put a stop to it. At least I can realise when I make a mistake, you have to be told. If I wasn't tellin' you about this now then you'd still be charmin' your new recruits six months from now and your real friends would just be a memory," he continued, referring to the bikers and surfers that Lela had been blanking recently. "Look, Sis, I know this change is important to you, and I want you to be happy, but don't let it change who you are," Butchy said, calming down a little bit now that he'd released everything he'd been keeping from his sister for the past few days.

"It doesn't sound like you want me to be happy," Lela scoffed, keeping her face expressionless, although Butchy noticed that she'd gone a little bit paler than usual.

"Of course I want you to be happy, Sis. I just don't like how this 'new you' is treating the people she cares about," Butchy shot back.

"Maybe this 'new me' is better, it's more successful and more confident-" Lela started, raising her voice as she spoke until Butchy cut her off.

"But she's not someone that Mom and Dad would be proud of," Butchy cut in, shutting Lela up almost immediately.

"Don't bring Mom and Dad into this," Lela said quietly, pressing her lips together tightly to try and stop Butchy from picking up how much that had knocked her.

"Why not? You're not payin' attention to anythin' I say anymore," Butchy shouted. "I've tried my hardest to bring us both up for the last five years, you have no idea how tough it's been for me to put on a front for you and try to be a good role model. You think it's only been difficult for you dealing with their loss? Well what about me? It's not my fault that they died, it's not like I caused the crash. So why did I have to be the grown up all of a sudden?"

"Butchy, stop," Lela pleaded meekly, hating to see her brother getting so worked up. But Butchy paid no attention.

"I had to look after us both and try to finish the job that Mom and Dad started of raising us but apparently I didn't do it will enough," he continued, still yelling at his sister and not seeing any point in turning back now. "'Cause one of the most important things that they tried to teach us is to keep the people you care about close to you, and I don't think that I was able to pass that lesson onto you."

"Butchy, you don't have to say anything else, just stop," Lela practically begged, trying to keep her face blank and hoping that her brother wouldn't see the tears welling in her eyes. But her voice cracked at the end slightly, which brought Butchy's attention back to his sister's body language.

"Just take some time to rethink things, ok?" Butchy sighed, crashing down from his outburst pretty quickly. "I know you don't think I've done a good job as a big brother and that you think I should be more supportive, but I's only tryin' to make Mom and Dad proud, Lela. I don't wanna feel guilty about doin' things wrong anymore, but you's stopped listenin' to what I try to tell you. I never meant to be a bad brother to you."

"And you haven't been one," Lela said, a tear slipping down her cheek but she didn't bother to wipe it away. "I'm so sorry, Butchy," she choked, breaking down and letting out a sob as she ran over to her big brother. Lela flung herself at Butchy and wrapped her arms around him, crying into his shoulder. "You did an amazing job at bringing us up, Mom and Dad would be so proud of you. They wouldn't be proud of me though."

"They'll always be proud of you, Sis, no matter what," Butchy said, holding his sister as she sobbed into his leather jacket. "I only said that 'cause I was tryin' to get you to listen."

"But I've been so horrible to everyone, Butchy," Lela cried, her voice muffled slightly as her body jerked up and down with each sob.

"You didn't realise you was doin' it, Sis," Butchy reassured her, not liking to see his little sister so upset. "At least you know now."

"I bet everyone hates me," Lela whimpered. "I was only trying to make everyone feel welcome and they just wanted to spend time with me, I didn't want to seem rude and say no."

"No one hates you, Lela," Butchy said, trying to dispel Lela's concerns a bit considering how much this had gotten to her so quickly.

"I need to make things right though," Lela sniffed, looking up from her brother's shoulder.

"How are you gonna do that?" Butchy asked, not so much because he was curious, more because he wanted to see how Lela was going to handle the situation.

"I don't know," Lela sighed in defeat, fresh salty drops of sorrow already spilling down her tear-streaked cheeks. "Help me, Butchy, you're good at that. You always seem to know what to do," she admitted, collapsing into another of her brother's hugs.

"It may seem like that but I really don't, Lela," Butchy said, a tiny sound that could possibly pass as a chuckle escaping his mouth. "I's just as clueless as you most of the time."

"Well you do a pretty good job of hiding that," Lela sniffed, this time making her older brother let out a proper laugh.

"You don't have to change your future, it doesn't have to go back to how it used to be, you can still be in charge of what you wanna do, but don't let it change who you are. Just let people know how much they mean to you," Butchy instructed, trying to give the best advice he could to his younger sister. "And spend your time with the people you care about, don't waste your time with nobodies. Ok?"

"Ok," Lela sighed, sniffing again and wiping her eyes. "Thanks, Butchy. I'm sorry about all of that; I hate it when we fight."

"Hey, we only do it when we have to, there's always a reason for it," Butchy said with a slight smile, glad to finally have his sister back to her old self.

"I still feel bad about acting the way I have been," Lela confessed, her eyes alone showing how guilty she felt. "I know what to do though," she continued, a smile spreading across her face as the idea dawned on her. With that she grabbed her leather from the back of the sofa and raced out of the room, the sound of her boots thudding on the stairs signalling that she was hurrying upstairs to get something. "Love ya, Butch!" Lela called as she ran.

"Love ya too, Sis," Butchy called back before going back to reading his motorcycle magazine, feeling extremely relieved that he had his little sister back and acting like herself again.

* * *

Around half an hour later, the sound of thudding boots came again, and Butchy turned his head just in time to see Lela throwing the door open and skipping outside.

"Where do you think you're goin'?" Butchy questioned, trying to throw his voice so that his sister could hear him since she was already pretty much in the driveway.

"To deliver these," Lela called back, holding up a bundle of neatly written notes in envelopes over her shoulder for her older brother to see, but before Butchy could question her further, Lela closed the door behind her and scurried off to deliver her letters. She stopped off at Lugnut's house first and pushed the envelope under the front door, before continuing on to Seacat's house and then Rascal's house, where she did the exact same thing. Her next stop was Tanner's house and although the procedure was very similar to before, she quickly kissed the envelope before sliding it under the door, leaving a print of her lips over the seal of her boyfriend's letter. Her final destination was Giggles' house, where she knew Struts and CheeChee were spending the night. She had apology letters for each of the girls (much like the ones that she'd left for the boys), just in case they didn't let her in, but they wouldn't be needed if everything went to plan. Luckily, everything did. Lela showed up on Giggles' porch and poured out how sorry she was to the three girls, pretty much relaying everything that she'd written in her letters to them, and after a little bit of consideration, the two biker girls and the surfer girl gladly allowed Lela to join their slumber party.

Lela managed to turn everything around at the beach, she showed her friends how much they meant to her and her relationships with them only grew stronger. She even introduced her newer friends to her old friends, which provided a lot of new friendships and satisfied everyone. Most of all, Lela and Tanner's romance continued to blossom, their little fight far behind them by now since it had been overpowered by their undeniable love for each other. Plus, they managed to rearrange a 'do-over date', which turned out to be a huge success and was now something that they organised every week. Butchy and Lela worked out their differences as siblings and learnt to respect each other's decisions better than ever before. Yes, siblings do fight, all the time in fact. But the rainbow after the storm is definitely worth the thunder. And Butchy and Lela definitely learnt that lesson. Maybe they'd finally realised what their parents had been trying to teach them from the start: more than anything else you might think seems important, when it comes down to it, family matters the most.

 **I hope that you didn't hate it! I know that it's not the best but it's all I could come up with.**

 **I think that I'm going to start putting the name of the next one shot that I'll be writing in these author's notes so the next one that I'll be writing will be called: An Awkward Duet. And it's going to be a Lela and Tanner one-shot because a lot of you want me to write something for them, so I'm going to give you what you want. I'm really excited to get started on it!**

 **I also want to bring up something that I mentioned in my update on Tuesday: my debate about my OC. First of all, I want to say thank you for all of the feedback you gave me. It's what I was looking for so I'm really pleased that you took the time to review and let me know your opinion. A lot of you said that you didn't really mind Coral, which definitely surprised me because I had been getting the impression lately that a lot of people disliked her. However, the main thing that I picked up on was that most of you find it hard to imagine her. So, obviously, I want to change that. I'll only be putting her into these one shots if someone has a specific idea that involves her, but if she happens to be included then I don't want her to spoil it for you. So this time, I'd like you to let me know why you find it hard to imagine Coral and if there's anything that I could do to help with that. I'd really appreciate it if you did. :)**

 **I'll try my best to start writing An Awkward Duet but it's my mum's birthday tomorrow and then I'm spending the weekend with my friends so I probably won't get any writing done. That means that it won't get posted until sometime next week. I'm really sorry for the delay again and I hate not posting for you but I can't really help it this time, I'm just really busy. I'm sorry; I'll try my best though!**

 **Thank you for reading!**

 **-cherrygorilla**


	6. An Awkward Duet (Lela & Tanner)

**Hello!**

 **I'm so sorry for not posting anything in so long! I've had a really busy week and on top of that I've really been struggling to write this one-shot. So if it's not that great, then that's why. I'm sorry that the standard of one-shots has been so poor lately; I've just been finding it hard to write. :/**

 **So this is a light-hearted Tanner & Lela one-shot, which was suggested by Guest123, hungryhipposlol and Lela1846, so thank you for submitting the ideas! I do have another Lela and Tanner one-shot planned, which is going to be a bit more serious, but this one is just meant to be fun. I hope that you don't think that it's as terrible as I do! **

Lela was a very busy girl. She was no longer content with just sitting around, waiting for things to happen and allowing for other people to make decisions for her. Mack had taught her to do things that she wanted to do, take part in activities she'd never dreamed of taking part in before and do the things that made her happy. And with Lela being Lela, she couldn't just take a back seat, she decided to take Mack's advice a step further and organise everything as well. However, this was proving to be a lot of work since Lela wanted to try out a lot of new activities.

Our story starts on a sunny afternoon outside of Big Momma's, where the breeze is blowing just enough to be considered comfortably warm without it forcing the weather to be too cold and the shouts and laughs can be heard from all around. With the surfers running around in the waves or playing games on along the beach and a few bikers strolling down the shoreline or fixing their bikes up on the sand, everything seemed to be pretty chilled out. The main couple on the beach where sharing a table on the relatively empty porch of Big Momma's, spending some much needed time together since they hadn't gotten the chance to do so lately. Lela was flipping through the sheets of paper on her hot pink clipboard, occasionally stopping to scribble something down on one of the pages. Whereas Tanner was just sitting in his seat, his head propped up by his hand, as he gazed at Lela. The biker girl had originally wanted him there to help her sort out everything for the many activities that were now held daily in Big Momma's and although Tanner wasn't really doing any of the work, Lela still liked him being there.

"Ok, so Giggles said that she was happy to help out with the art club, which we could hold on a Wednesday. But that won't work this week because that's the evening of the auditions for the play for drama club, so maybe we could hold it in the afternoon. Oh wait, that's when Struts' is lending a hand with the French club," Lela babbled, trying to sort out the schedule as best as she could. While she thought, she gnawed on her lip and twirled her pink polka dot pen between her fingers, her eyes scanning the page in front of her just in case she spotted a space that she'd missed before. But when her steel-blue eyes found nothing new, they moved up to meet the gaze of her boyfriend. "Tanner, what do think?"

"Well," Tanner started, finding it hard to focus and pick out the right words to say when Lela was sat right in front of him. The thing about Lela was that to him she was the very definition of beautiful; her ivory skin remained unblemished and her glossy, raven black hair worked as a startling, but gorgeous, contrast. Her eyes, which were still focused on him, were the colour of the sky just before a storm settles in and they were framed with satin black lashes that made Tanner's heart jump every time they fluttered when she blinked. Her nose turned up at the end, ever so slightly, and it was perfectly proportioned, just like the rest of her features. Today her lips were painted in a colour that reminded Tanner of the fruit punch that was often served at the many shindigs held in Big Momma's, and it looked gorgeous on her. It was easily one of his favourite shades of her many lipsticks, although he thought that she looked equally wonderful in each of them. The sunlight danced off the lustre of her glossy lips and highlighted their gentle incline, making the fact clear that she had a hint of a smile lingering there; a glimpse of the smile that lit up the room like the sun, so it was no wonder that Tanner was so tanned since he studied her smile as long as he did. It was only then that Tanner realised that Lela's gorgeous lips were moving and sound was coming out; sound that he wasn't paying attention to. "Huh?"

"You zoned out for a second there," Lela stated, a small chuckle escaping her mouth at her boyfriend's expression; he looked totally besotted with her and Lela found it adorable.

"Oh, yeah, sorry," Tanner chuckled, returning to his usual, giggly self almost immediately. "Wait," he said after he recovered from his laughter, properly locking eyes with Lela once more. "What were we talking about again?"

"I was asking you what you thought I should do about organizing the activities rota," Lela explained, trying to stifle a giggle that was a consequence of Tanner's scatterbrain behaviour.

"Oh yeah," Tanner chuckled, finally remembering Lela's original point. "Well there's one thing that I know for sure."

"What's that?" Lela asked, lightly tapping her pen against her cheek.

"That no matter what you decide to do, it'll work out," Tanner said, flashing Lela one of his signature smiles as he started to fiddle with the glass candle holder at the centre of the table.

"How can you be so sure?" Lela asked, sitting back in her chair a little bit and tipping her head slightly to the side.

"Because I'm Tanner," Tanner chuckled, making Lela let out her own small laugh before Tanner took her hands in his and went into his more serious mode. "And I know that you're capable of doing it. You're capable of a lot of things, Lela. You're incredible, I've never known someone as strong-minded as you are and I couldn't be any prouder. So whatever you choose to do, we'll be fine."

"We?" Lela questioned, intertwining her fingers with her boyfriend's.

"Of course, I'm not going anywhere," Tanner chuckled, bringing out Lela's smile. But it faded after a few seconds, although Tanner didn't notice it straight away.

"Tanner," Lela said after a few seconds, grabbing her boyfriend's attention once more.

"Yeah?" Tanner asked.

"You don't think I'm being too controlling, do you?" Lela asked, her eyes falling to the table for a few seconds before flitting up again to meet Tanner's.

"What do you mean?" Tanner chuckled, not catching on to how concerned Lela was.

"I just don't want to seem bossy," Lela started.

"Just because you're so good at organising everything, doesn't make you bossy, Sweetie," Tanner said, flashing Lela a quick smile and giving her hand a small squeeze.

"But I don't want you to feel like I'm forcing you into things," Lela continued, her eyebrows creasing together slightly as she frowned down at the slats of wood that made up the table she was sat at.

"You're not forcing me into anything, I love all the clubs that we do," Tanner reassured her, helping to portray his enthusiasm by his eyes lighting up. With all of the new activities Lela had put on offer for the bikers and surfers, no one was ever bored at the beach. However, since Lela was so keen to start all of the different clubs, she played a major part in each and every one of them, which sometimes proved to be rather a lot to take on for the biker girl. Not only was it a fair amount to handle for Lela, but since she wanted to show her friends that the clubs she was hosting were not just for girls or just for bikers, boys and surfers were very welcome too, and to prove that she used Tanner as living evidence, which meant that he had to attend all of the meetings for all of the clubs. He didn't mind though, he'd do anything Lela asked him to, just as long as it made her happy.

"Are you sure?" Lela questioned, not completely convinced with her boyfriend's answer.

"Oh, I'm sure I'm sure," Tanner grinned, hoping to dispel all of Lela's concerns so that they could spend some time together without her worrying, he really hated seeing her anxious as well. "All the clubs you've organized are really swell. Take the chemistry club for example; although I don't know what I'm doing most of the time, I still have fun doing the experiment things, especially when the liquid changes colour or does something else cool. Plus, you're always there to help me," Tanner babbled. The more Lela listened to her boyfriend ramble about the activities she had planned, and the more excited he got about them, the bigger her smile grew. Knowing that Tanner was enjoying the events she planned was enough to keep her smiling for a long time. "And the astronomy club is really neat, mostly because we get to roast marshmallows before we start and then after that we just get to look at the stars. But last time when we were laying on the sand I fell asleep because it was just so quiet – don't tell Seacat though, I was having a bet with him to see who could stay awake the longest and I may or may not have lied about losing. Speaking of Seacat, he was really bummed when we lost the soccer match on Thursday in sports club, so was Lugnut now that I think about it, but you girls did really well, you and Giggles were amazing! And I've even been practicing really hard for music club too. Look," Tanner said, picking up the instrument that he had resting against his chair. "I was kind of mad that Butchy got to take the guitar but at least I get to play the tiny guitar."

"Tanner, that 'tiny guitar' is called a ukulele," Lela giggled, her grin lighting up her entire face.

"Well whatever it's called, it's fun to play," Tanner chuckled; glad to see that Lela was back to her usual happy self. "Have you been practising your flute?"

"Oh my goodness, I completely forgot!" Lela gasped, her eyes widening as she started to internally panic.

"It's ok, you're really good at it anyway," Tanner said, sending Lela a smile, which thankfully put her mind at rest.

"You're just saying that to make me feel better," Lela said shyly, a light, barely noticeable, blush forming on her cheeks.

"Well yeah, but that doesn't mean that it's not true," Tanner replied, just making Lela's face flush redder than ever. "And don't worry about forgetting something so small, it's just music club. Plus, who's going to corner you about it? You run the activity, don't you?"

"I guess you're right," Lela chuckled, realising how silly the problems that she was worrying about were becoming of late. "I just have a lot to deal with recently."

"Maybe you need a break," Tanner suggested.

"I couldn't possibly take a break, there's still so much to do," Lela babbled, starting to ramble about all of the things that she had to sort out before Tanner cut in.

"Not like a long break, just for like the afternoon," Tanner clarified, watching as Lela tossed the idea back and forth in her head, deciding whether or not she was actually going to take Tanner up on his offer and abandon her busy schedule for the next few hours.

"Ok, sure," Lela smiled after eventually coming to a decision. "I suppose I could use a break."

"Cool," Tanner grinned. "So…uhh…what do you want to do?" he asked after a short pause, looking to Lela for an answer.

Lela took her time answering, after all, now that she was already making everything happen that she had ever wanted to do, there was nothing new that she wanted to try. So in the end, she decided to bring things back to her roots. "How about we just hang out, like old times, and do stuff that we don't do as much as we used to."

"Ok," Tanner chuckled, seeming to be totally on board with the idea. "So what sort of thing did you have in mind?"

"I want us to sing something," Lela said, completely certain with her answer as she gave a confident smile to the boy sat opposite her, who looked a little startled by the proposition.

"Just us?" Tanner questioned, one of his eyebrows dipping in confusion. "But we haven't sung something with just the two of us in…a long time," he continued, giving up on trying to remember an exact date.

"I know, that's why I want to do it again," Lela explained, hoping and praying that Tanner would agree, she'd missed singing as often as she used to, especially with her boyfriend, so she wanted to bring that back into her life.

"But, Sweetie, what if we're…" Tanner started, gradually getting more nervous about the idea as he waited for a few seconds before continuing his sentence. "Out of practice?" he finished, trying to keep his voice down. It was almost like he was embarrassed about the situation, which Lela found very puzzling. "Or even worse, out of tune?" Tanner added, appearing to be absolutely horrified by the thought of humiliating himself like that.

"Well…" Lela started, trying to make her boyfriend lighten up to the idea. "We don't know until we try."

"Ok, alright, we can do this," Tanner sighed after a few seconds of pondering the suggestion, trying to psych himself up so that there was a bigger chance of him having a better performance.

"Absolutely," Lela grinned, thrilled at the very prospect of taking part in something that she was destined to do. She was the lead in a movie musical after all, she was made to sing.

Tanner picked up his ukulele and started to strum a tune, prompting both teens to get ready, but now that this was actually happening, both of them had become very nervous. Maybe this wasn't such a good idea after all; maybe they should have just left it for another time. Lela opened her mouth to sing, but nothing came out, it was like she'd forgotten how to form a melody, to even sing a note. Tanner picked up on how his girlfriend was trying to start, which relieved him because he certainly didn't want to begin the song, that was a lot of pressure and he really didn't want to mess up in front of Lela, he was really self-conscious about that. But once he saw that she wasn't actually singing, he decided to step in. At first he had intended to just ask her, however, to his surprise, the sentence that he had formed in his head came out as the first line of what turned out to be their duet.

Tanner: "Do you want to go first?

'Cause I'm happy to wait"

Lela gave a quick shake of her head as the panic over her vanishing vocal chords set in. Hopefully if she just waited it out for a bit then she'd actually be able to sing something…anything, she just wanted to prove to herself that she could still do it because if she didn't then who knows what would happen to the film they were in if there was no music in it.

Meanwhile, Tanner was trying his best to relax into the song, but he was still finding it uncomfortable after the first few lines. Tanner never felt awkward about singing, it's what he did all the time, it came naturally to him, but today it wasn't doing that, and that was starting to worry him. And Tanner did not like to worry one bit.

Tanner: "I practiced really hard

But I'm finding it strange to start with you"

After Tanner's confession, which he didn't know was coming, there was a pause where Tanner just kept strumming the same chords on his ukulele, giving the couple enough time to work out what was going wrong and try to fix it, although that was going to take a bit more time than they had anticipated.

Lela: "So how does it go?

I've forgotten the tune

I haven't warmed up today

So I might sound a bit strange, yes I do"

Lela managed to pluck up enough courage to force herself to start singing, but once she did hundreds of worries flooded into her mind about everything and anything that could possibly go wrong in the space of the few minutes that the couple were attempting to produce a melody. Therefore, affecting her confidence and making her believe that she didn't know simple things that she was fully aware of. Even with all of that going on, Lela was still determined to prove to Tanner, and herself, that she _could_ do this. Little did she know though, that Tanner was telling himself the exact same thing.

Lela: "Cause I"

Tanner: "Can"

Lela: "Sing"

Tanner: "I"

Lela & Tanner: "Swear it's true

I'm just a little nervous in front of you"

Tanner and Lela sent each other shy smiles after realising that they were both having the same concerns. Despite that though, Tanner still had a few issues surrounding their duet, which would no doubt end in disaster if they weren't resolved…at least that's what he thought anyway.

Tanner: "So who's on the third?

I think I'm better at melody

Oh I'm going to get it wrong

Should we try another song?

No? Ok"

After Tanner's suggestion was met with a shake of his girlfriend's head, he decided to just stay quiet until the chorus, feeling incredibly awkward for some strange reason, especially around Lela, which had never happened before.

Lela: "Let's just go for a take

And see how we sound

My heart is beating fast

Oh vocal chords please last

Here we go"

Lela was feeling awkward too, which worried her slightly. She wasn't supposed to get nervous around Tanner, they were meant to be together, there was no need to be nervous. But little did they know the only reason that they were so nervous around each other was because they were both so worried about impressing their significant other that it was impacting on their confidence in themselves.

Lela: "Cause I"

Tanner: "Can"

Lela: "Sing"

Tanner: "I"

Lela & Tanner: "Swear it's true

I'm just a little nervous in front of you"

Lela: "Ah do do do do"

Tanner: "Ah do do do do"

Lela: "Ah do do do do"

Tanner: "Ah do do do do

Ah ah ah ah ah ah ah"

Lela: "Ah ah ah ah ah"

Tanner: "La da da da da"

Lela: "Ah ah ah ah"

Lela & Tanner: "Oh oh oh oh oh oh oh ah ah"

The couple went off track from their song for a few counts, free-styling a bit and testing out their vocal chords again because apparently they'd gotten a bit rusty from lack of use. Through this improvisation process however, Lela and Tanner were finally starting to become more comfortable around each other again and they were managing to relax into the song and enjoy themselves. They shot each other reassuring smiles and gradually their duet turned into a song where they were pretty much just praising their own efforts of singing. With a few ad-lib moments and some small laughs between lines, they were fully jamming out to their simple little song, completely oblivious to the world around them.

Lela: "Hey we sound good"

Tanner: "Yeah we sound good"

Lela: "Yeah we sound good"

Tanner: "We sound so good"

Lela: "Yeah we sound good"

Tanner: "Da da da da da da da da da"

Lela: "Da da da da"

Tanner: "We sound so good, we sound so"

Lela: "Yeah we sound good"

Tanner: "Yeah oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh"

Lela: "Yeah yeah ooh"

Tanner: "Da da da da da"

Lela: "Ooh"

Tanner: "La da da da da"

Lela: "Yeah we sound good

Yeah we sound good"

Tanner: "Yeah yeah na na oh"

Lela: "Yeah we sound good"

Tanner: "We sound so sound so good"

Lela: "Yeah"

Tanner: "Yeah na na na na na"

Lela: "Yeah we sound good"

Tanner stopped playing and Lela's last line trailed off until her note was barely audible anymore as the pair stared rather awkwardly at each other, both very embarrassed but unaware of what had caused them to feel that way. Their freestyle session came to a rather abrupt ending after the two teens realised that they were beginning to sound a little bit narcissistic. Plus, something didn't feel right, but neither of them knew what it was yet. Lela was the first to speak up about it though as Tanner started to strum the simple chord pattern again.

Lela: "I think I messed up

I just wanted to improvise

Shall we try another day?"

Lela's suggestion came as a surprise to Tanner, although neither of them were exactly confident throughout the song, it didn't sound bad, at least he didn't think so.

Tanner: "I think I sounded great so…"

Tanner trailed off as Lela shot him a puzzled look. Maybe he was right, maybe it wasn't as terrible as she was making herself think that they were. From this experience, Lela learnt that although you may not be perfect at something straight away, as long as you believe in yourself then there's no way that you could possibly fail. So what if she hadn't been doing a lot of singing with Tanner lately? That wasn't going to stop her from trying again in the future, it just meant that they were going to have to practice more often, which definitely wasn't a bad thing if it required her spending more time with her boyfriend. So as they sang the final chorus, Lela got up from her chair and stepped over to the railing that surrounded the porch area of Big Momma's, with Tanner following her actions.

Lela: "Cause I"

Tanner: "Can"

Lela: "Sing"

Tanner: "I"

Lela & Tanner: "Swear it's true

I'm just a little nervous in front of you"

The couple were side by side at this point and as they sang the last line, they turned to face each other, their eyes meeting once again. They each let out a small laugh as Tanner put his ukulele down on the table that they'd just been sat at. Although their duet had not been as perfect as they had intended, they had still really enjoyed themselves, and that's what mattered.

Tanner turned back to Lela and shot her a smile as he took a step closer to her. They didn't realise how close they actually were until it got to the point where their chests were pressed together and they were pretty much sharing the same air. Tanner wrapped his arms around Lela's waist as Lela's hands delicately clasped the base of Tanner's neck, bringing their faces even closer together. Loved-up smiles curled at the couple's lips, which were touching within seconds. Lela's finger tips gently ran through the hair on the back of Tanner's head as the kiss continued, whereas Tanner's hands only moved upwards to try to bring Lela as close to him as physically possible. The same smiles were plastered across their faces when they eventually broke apart, although it wasn't for long because even though Lela didn't go in for another kiss, she snuggled her head into Tanner's chest, breathing in the scent of the ocean as she let her eyes slide shut. She had definitely needed a break because this felt like bliss.

 **Ehhh…that wasn't very good, was it? In fact, that was terrible, I'm sorry that you had to read that. I'd like to apologise again for it not being very good after making you wait so long for an update, I just haven't had the time to write and when I have gotten the chance to I just have no ideas. Sorry!**

 **The song that I used is called (funnily enough) An Awkward Duet (I wonder where I got the name for the one-shot from ;D) and it's by Dodie Clark and Jon Cozart. It's a really cute song and as soon as I heard it I knew that I had to include it in one of my stories!**

 **I didn't get any feedback about improving my OC last chapter, so for now I'm just going to leave it. Until I know what I need to do to make her seem more believable I'm just going to drop the matter and only include her in one-shots if someone has a specific prompt that requires her to be there. I hope that you don't mind! (Even though I doubt that anyone reads these author's notes).**

 **Like I said last chapter, I'm going to be giving away the title of the next one-shot at the end of each story. So the next one-shot is going to be called Prank After Prank After Prank and it's going to be about: (you've guessed it) pranks. I have a few of the pranks planned out but I don't have enough ideas for pranks, so I'd really appreciate it if you could leave some suggestions for me! If you want a specific person to pull the prank or you have a certain person you would like to have it pulled on then include that as well. I'll try to use as many as I can in the story!**

 **Thank you for reading!**

 **-cherrygorilla**


	7. Prank After Prank After Prank - Part 1

**Hello!**

 **I know that I just posted last night asking you what you thought I should do with this next one-shot, but based on your opinions; I'm back with the first section today! Putting the story up in sections seemed to be the most popular choice so that's what I'm going with. Thank you to everyone who helped me to decide! :)**

 **I managed to buckle down this morning and I got the first part written, which is good because my friends are coming over later so I wouldn't have time to write. I hope that you enjoy it!**

 **WARNING: THIS STORY INCLUDES MY OC. DON'T READ IF YOU DON'T LIKE HER. Coral was included in the list of couples that Owllover34 wanted in this story and since it's their idea, I put her in. Sorry if you're not a big fan of her, she won't be included much in the other three stories of this series, don't worry. :)**

 **Here's the one-shot: Wet Hair!**

No one exactly knows how it started…actually, that's a lie. Everyone knows where it started, but no one knew how it progressed into what it finally became; the prank war. It began one Friday evening when Butchy was being led to the backstage area of Big Momma's by Lela and Struts.

"What is it that you want me to do again?" Butchy asked, digging his hands into the pockets of his leather vest as he strolled along behind the two biker girls, who were scurrying down the corridor several feet in front of him, apparently a lot more concerned about the situation than the Rodents leader.

"Just hurry up, it's through here," Struts snapped as Lela popped the lock on the door and hurried inside.

"Look, it's up there," Lela said to her older brother, pointing at the corner of the dressing room roof. The object in question was the remains of a ripped curtain that was lodged behind the floor-to-ceiling mirror.

"So…whaddya expect me to do?" Butchy questioned, his eyes moving from the strip of fabric to his little sister and back again.

"Cut it out or take it down or…something. Just get rid of it," Lela pleaded, giving her brother a small shove in the direction of the mirror.

"Why's I gotta do it?" Butchy huffed, not seeing any great difficulty in the task that Lela was asking him to carry out.

"Cause it's up high," Lela explained whilst Struts nodded, as if the answer was the most obvious solution in existence.

"So?!" Butchy exclaimed. If there was a point to him being there and taking the curtain down for the two girls then he was completely missing it.

"Well we don't wanna be balancin' on a chair in these heels," Struts drawled, kicking her foot up behind her to show off her hot pink stilettos.

"You two do realise that ya shoes aren't glued to ya feet, right?" Butchy said, crossing his arms over his chest as he shot the two girls a bored expression.

"We's not idiots, Butchy," Struts snapped, rolling her eyes at the unimpressed biker boy.

"Fine, I'll do it," Butchy sighed, begrudgingly going to locate a chair to stand on. However, once the girls left him alone in the dressing room, he started to formulate an idea. Since he'd been dragged into the backstage area, he was going to take advantage of it. And although it wasn't exactly a nice idea, it was sure to be a hilarious one.

* * *

Butchy wandered out of the corridor that led backstage, the scissors he had used to cut out the trapped curtain and another item, which was crucial to the plan, stuffed into the pockets of his leather vest. He spotted his target almost immediately after he walked into the main part of the restaurant. Coral was sat at a table with Seacat and Giggles and, thankfully, she had her back to him. Butchy had to try to stifle his grin before making his way over to his girlfriend since he knew that if Seacat or Giggles saw him smiling then they would know that something was up.

"No, Seacat, you're not female news reporter," was the first thing that Butchy heard from the conversation between the three surfers, which left him wondering if he wanted to get involved or not. But even Giggles' rather bizarre comment couldn't deter Butchy because he couldn't wait to see his girlfriend's reaction to what he had planned.

"Hey there, gorgeous," Butchy said, his voice hushed and slightly husky as he wrapped his arms around Coral from behind and spoke with his head beside her ear.

"Since when have you started calling me 'gorgeous'?" Coral questioned, trying to play it off cool but not succeeding very well. She just hoped that her friends and her boyfriend couldn't tell how much she was blushing.

"What? Am I not allowed to give you compliments now?" Butchy asked, turning his head to look at Coral properly, even though their faces were pretty close together already.

"No…cause it means you've done something wrong," Coral said slowly, her eyebrows creasing together as she tried to think of something Butchy could have attempted that had turned out to be a disaster. Little did she know that the disaster was still to come.

"I haven't done anythin'," Butchy chuckled, standing up a bit straighter as he loosened his grip around his girlfriend's shoulders. "I just think that you look extra pretty today."

"Awww," Giggles cooed, a giddy smile spreading across her face as she gazed at the couple. "Even though we pick on you two all the time for not being romantic enough, you're still really cute together."

"Yeah, yeah, yeah," Coral said, a hint of sarcasm coming into her voice. "We're adorable."

"What's this you're playin' then?" Butchy asked, only just noticing the post-it notes stuck to the foreheads of the three surfers.

"We're playing 'Who Am I?' and at the moment Seacat's losing," Giggles explained, earning an eye roll from the boy with a hat.

"It's not my fault I've got someone stupid," Seacat argued, making Coral let out a small laugh.

"Maybe Tanner chose it because it goes with your personality then," Giggles challenged, a triumphant smile playing at her lips as Seacat's mouth hung open and Coral let out a rather large laugh.

"Well your person's not got as pretty hair as you do," Butchy said after turning Coral's head in his direction so that he could read the name written on the slip of paper stuck to her face.

"Hey stop that, I don't want any clues, that's cheating," Coral scolded, playfully shoving Butchy away and trying to hide her grin, which came from yet another compliment from her boyfriend. "And don't think that I didn't notice you flattering me again," she added before turning back to face her friends.

"I can't help it if I like ya hair," Butchy said, sensing that he could start to put his plan into action with the direction that this conversation was going.

"I haven't done anything special to it though," Coral said, slightly puzzled as to why Butchy was so bothered about complimenting her tonight.

"Does that mean that I's gotta hate it?" Butchy questioned, raising his eyebrow at the surfer girl even though she couldn't see him.

"…No," Coral said after a slight pause, wondering what had suddenly brought on all of this romantic behaviour from her boyfriend.

"I rest my case," Butchy said, satisfied that Coral stayed quiet after that comment. She obviously wasn't in the mood for arguing with him…but that was all about to change. "But," Butchy started, taking the scissors and his other prop out of his pocket as he spoke. "I think that I preferred it when it was shorter," he finished, gently freeing a golden brown lock from the mess of curls with his little finger.

"What are you talking-?" Coral began, but she was shocked into silence when the sound of snipping reached her ears.

Butchy mimed cutting the lock of hair that he held in his hands, dropping the strand back into place almost immediately to aid the illusion. The biker boy had clipped the scissors together just above where he was pretending to take a chunk out of Coral's hair, so that the surfer girl thought that he'd lopped off part of her hair. To make things worse, Butchy had found some extensions in the prop room backstage and managed to locate some that were pretty much identical to Coral's hair; the same golden brown colour and the same soft curls. So it really did look like he'd cut a lock of Coral's hair out.

"Oh…" Seacat managed to say, but his comment didn't get any further into development because Coral was already scrambling out of her seat.

"Did you just cut my hair?" Coral asked, her panic over the situation starting to come through in her voice.

"It was an accident, I swear," Butchy said, playing up his lie as much as he could to see how far he could push her. But it obviously wasn't an accident, because he'd planned the whole thing out a few minutes before.

"How could you-? That's not an accident! How could it be an accident?! You just cut my hair!" Coral cried; her expression like a thunderstorm due to how furious she was with her boyfriend and the angry tears that were threatening to fall acting as the rain. All she needed now was the lightning, but she was too emotionally drained at the moment to start screaming.

"I'm sorry," Butchy said, holding his hands up in surrender. But he couldn't stop a chuckle from escaping his mouth.

"What are you laughing at?! This isn't funny!" Coral cried. Her eyes kept flitting from Butchy, to the scissors, to the extension, which she still thought was her real hair, and then back to Butchy again. The cycle was continuous and the more what had just happened sunk in, the more upset she got. "You literally just took a chunk out of my hair! It's going to look ridiculous now!"

"It looks fine," Butchy replied, which technically was the truth since he hadn't actually done anything to her hair. But Coral wasn't bothered about that right now, she had issues of her own to deal with thanks to the biker boy.

"No it doesn't! I can't believe you just did that!" Coral exclaimed, running her fingers through her hair like a comb, trying to find the spot that Butchy had supposedly severed. "Butchy!" she cried, letting out a frustrated huff as she manically brushed her hair with her fingertips.

"Coral," Butchy mocked, knowing that he was pushing it when his girlfriend shot him a glare. If looks could kill then Butchy would pretty much be already in a grave. That was it. Butchy couldn't take it any longer. He broke down laughing, literally doubled up with tears rolling down his cheeks as Coral grabbed the hair extension out of his hands and started to examine it for herself. "It's a fake," Butchy spluttered between howls of laughter, watching with delight as Coral's mouth dropped to the floor. She kept opening and closing her mouth several times as she just stared at the piece of hair in her hands in awe. "It's an extension I found in the prop room," Butchy explained further, having to steady himself on a barstool so that he didn't completely collapse on the floor from laughing so much.

"I hate you so much right now," Coral murmured, letting out a very defeated sigh as she sunk down into her chair.

"You shoulda seen ya face!" Butchy cackled; glancing at Coral's dejected expression before bursting out into laughter again.

"You really scared me," Coral snapped, cradling the fake extension and frowning at her boyfriend.

"Look, I'm sorry, but that was absolutely hilarious," Butchy chuckled, finally gaining a little bit more composure as he stepped back over to his girlfriend and gave her a proper hug.

"For you maybe," Coral frowned, reluctantly hugging Butchy back even though she was really mad at him.

"Oh, and by the way," Butchy said as he stepped back from the hug. Before Coral could respond, he plucked the post-it note from her forehead and turned it towards her. "You were Big Momma," he finished, completely ruining the game of 'Who Am I?' for his significant other.

"Ugh, Butchy!" Coral cried, letting out an exasperated sigh as Butchy gave her a wink and ran off to go and brag to his biker buddies about the prank he had just pulled on the usually chilled out surfer girl.

"Don't worry, Coral. We can just write you up another one," Giggles said, walking up behind her best friend and referring to the post-it note that kept her part of the game.

"No, it's fine," Coral said airily, a smile soon returning to her face, although this one appeared to be a lot less genuine and a lot more wicked.

"Oh dear, what are you thinking now?" Giggles asked, picking up on the expression Coral was wearing as she stared down the back of Butchy's head.

"What do you think?" Coral chuckled, keeping her eyes focused on her biker boyfriend as a sly grin tugged at the edges of her mouth.

"I think that the real question is: 'what's your revenge plot this time?'" Seacat said as he got up from his seat and stepped over to the two girls, shooting Coral a questioning yet intrigued smile.

"'Revenge plot?' Don't you think that's a bit far?" Giggles asked warily, fiddling with the end of a strand of her blonde hair; a nervous habit of hers.

"Nope," Coral grinned, her smile broadening as the plan started to formulate in her head. "If I leave it alone then he's going to think that it's ok to prank me, which means that he thinks he'll just get off the hook next time and all the times after that."

"But I'm guessing that after this plan then there's not going to be a next time," Seacat said, shooting a look at Coral so that she could confirm his answer.

"Exactly," Coral said as Seacat noticed the mischievous glint in her eye that she got when she was excited.

"What do you need this time?" Giggles sighed, knowing that she wasn't going to be able to dissuade her best friend now that she was this far into her plan.

"Not much, just a ride to the store," Coral said casually, prompting Seacat to pull out his car keys and for her two friends to start walking towards the double doors of Big Momma's. However, Coral hung back a bit, knowing that the next item wouldn't be taken well by the pair of surfers, who were already unsure of the idea. "And the keys to Lela and Butchy's house," she finished, a smug smile curling the edges of her lips as she watched Seacat and Giggles' shoulders slump.

"Oh brother," Giggles mumbled, knowing that this plan was going to turn from bad to worse from here.

"Here we go," Seacat muttered as Coral bounded up behind them.

"It's genius," Coral giggled as she caught up with her two pranking assistants. "And that's not normally a word that's associated with me."

* * *

Butchy woke up the following morning and rolled over to check the time, which turned out to be 8:35am, or at least that's what the clock on his bedside table said. He stretched, let out a yawn and groggily sat up. The biker boy was just about to throw back his black duvet when he spotted that the door to his room was open and someone was standing outside it…well, she was leaning against the banister.

"What the-" Butchy started, his heart literally stopping when he saw the figure stood there. But once his eyes adjusted to being awake, he recognised the person almost immediately. That doesn't mean that he understood why she was there though. "Jeez, Coral, ya scared the life outta me!"

"Morning, Handsome," Coral smiled, looking up from the magazine that she was flipping through for a second while she continued to lean against the staircase's banister just outside of Butchy's bedroom door.

"What on earth are ya doin' here?!" Butchy asked, completely ignoring the fact that Coral was mocking the compliments that he had given her yesterday before the hair cutting incident. "Lela's not even home, she's at Struts' place, so why are ya here?!" he continued, slowly pulling his duvet back around himself because for some reason he hadn't really thought through yet, he didn't feel comfortable with Coral seeing him in his pyjamas.

"I thought I'd drop by and see you," Coral said nonchalantly, shooting her boyfriend an innocent smile before looking back down at the magazine page she currently had open in her hands.

"Why?! Why couldn't it wait?! Why are you in my house?!" Butchy asked; getting more and more perplexed by the bizarre situation he'd woken up to as time wore on.

"Why is it such a problem?" Coral asked, tilting her head slightly to the side as she shot her boyfriend a questioning look.

"Cause I don't know what you's is doin' here!" Butchy exclaimed, unable to comprehend how relaxed Coral was about the whole situation.

"I thought you might be thirsty when you woke up," Coral said simply, this time not even looking up from the magazine article she was reading.

"What?!" Butchy asked, now more confused than ever. He basically thought that his girlfriend had gone insane.

"I left you some water in case you got thirsty when you woke up," Coral clarified, even though everything was still as clear as mud for Butchy. But the biker boy caught on when Coral signalled for him to look at his bedroom floor. Let's just say he was a little bit horrified with the sight that he was met with.

Butchy's entire bedroom floor had cups of water spread across it. Every single inch of floor was covered with the cups, which were placed in neat rows and were filled pretty much up to the brim. And since Butchy's bed was in the corner of the room furthest from the doorway, he was essentially trapped.

"Oh my…ugh, Coral," Butchy complained, staring at the mass of cups in disbelief. "How long did all of this take you?"

"I think I got here at about six o'clock," Coral replied, relishing in how annoyed Butchy was getting about the situation. She'd picked the timing perfectly too because Butchy was always grouchy when he first woke up. "And I finished about fifteen minutes ago," she added.

"Six?! You got up that early just to annoy me?" Butchy asked, frowning through to doorway at his perky girlfriend.

"I always get up at that time," Coral smiled, finally closing the magazine before holding it behind her back.

"You's is dedicated, I'll give ya that," Butchy huffed, pondering how he was actually going to get out of the room without disrupting the mass of plastic cups.

"Thanks," Coral said, sending her boyfriend a satisfied grin. "Now we're even."

"Even?" Butchy questioned, still slightly groggy from just waking up.

"You didn't think that I was going to let you get away with your little prank yesterday, did you?" Coral asked, tilting her head to the side again but adding an expectant smile this time.

"This is all because of that?" Butchy asked, only just realising the mess he'd gotten himself into.

"Yep," Coral replied, popping the 'p' and crossing her arms over her chest, still holding onto the magazine.

"Ugh," Butchy groaned, rolling his eyes and wishing that he could just go back to sleep until everything had gone back to normal.

"The only reason I'm still sticking around is because I want to see how you get out," Coral chuckled, watching Butchy try to devise a route.

In the end, Butchy decided that taking a 'leap of faith' was the best solution, but his body thought otherwise. Apparently his legs thought that jumping wasn't the first thing that they should be doing after Butchy had just woken up, so when he tried to hop from the corner of his mattress to the door, they buckled and sent Butchy falling face first onto the floor. He crushed quite a lot of the cups and sent others around him tipping over, soaking him and the floor of his bedroom in cold water.

"Oh my goodness," Coral chuckled; she was barely able to believe that her revenge prank had gone so well. "That was spectacular," she cackled, starting to laugh her head off as Butchy began to get up, absolutely drenched from the water.

"You're so dead," he grumbled, scrambling to his feet as Coral bolted for the stairs, still laughing away to herself. But by the time Butchy was thundering down the stairs, she'd already managed to get the front door open and was now halfway down the street that led to the beach. Butchy let out a frustrated sigh and watched Coral's retreating figure before he went to clear up the mess in his room and get ready for the day.

* * *

Coral thought that she'd gotten away with her plot for revenge and that she no longer had anything to rival about with Butchy. But that wasn't the case. Because when the biker boy finally arrived at the beach later that day, he marched straight over to his girlfriend, picked her up and balanced her over his shoulder, despite her squeals and complaints. He then proceeded to wade out into the water, his rage managing to block out his fear, and dunk Coral into the waves once they were reaching just below his knees. That definitely relieved a bit of Butchy's pent up anger. Coral poked her head above the water once she'd sat on the sandy bottom, shaking her curls free of droplets of water and blinking the salty beads of sea water away from her eyes.

"Are you happy now?" Coral asked, still frowning at her boyfriend even though she was just asking him a question.

"Yep," Butchy shot back, mocking the way that Coral had popped the 'p' in the word earlier that day. "Are you?"

"Not yet," Coral said as an idea sprung into her head. As Butchy reached out a hand to help her up, she grabbed it and yanked him into the water beside her. So they were both completely soaking wet now…but at least their hair and their clothes were fine, or at least they would be as soon as they got out of the water. After all, that's what happens in Wet Side Story. You get wet when you're supposed to but you pretty much instantly dry off, almost like you'd never been touched by water in the first place. "Now I'm happy," Coral grinned, finding the surprised expression on Butchy's face hilarious. She leaned across and planted a salty kiss on the biker boy's cheek, making it last a few seconds before scrambling to her feet and showering her previous kissing partner with sea water, on accident of course. And even after getting splashed in the face numerous times, Butchy couldn't help but keep the smile off his face as he gazed at the girl in front of him.

Ok, so their relationship may not be conventional and they may not always display their affection in public, but that doesn't stop them from loving each other. And no prank, no matter what it entails, could ever jeopardise that. But their pranks definitely could trigger one of the weirdest weekends in Wet Side Story history. Coral and Butchy had just started what would soon be known as the Great Prank War.

 **I really hope that you liked it and that you didn't mind Coral being involved! I just thought that I'd start it out with Butchy and Coral because I feel like it's something that they would end up initiating, even if they didn't intend to. I apologise if you don't like them though, it was just to set up the story.**

 **I know that it's not the best but I'm ok with it. Sorry that it took so long to write though, I've just been really busy lately. :/**

 **I just want to thank Owllover34 for the idea for this mini-series, the next couple that I'm going to write about, from the list that she left, is Struts and Lugnut. So I hope that you look forward to that! Also, Owllover34, your most recent idea will be the next one-shot after this series. Don't worry, I'm definitely writing it. :)**

 **I've also been thinking about a possible idea for a future story that I wanted to run by you, since I always like to hear your opinion on things before I carry them out. I've been toying with the idea of trying to write my own version of Wet Side Story, as in what I think that the film would have been like. I don't know if I'll be writing it any time soon but I'd like to hear what you think of the idea!**

 **Thank you very much for reading!**

 **-cherrygorilla**


	8. Prank After Prank After Prank - Part 2

**Hello!**

 **I know that I posted a chapter of Reality Check this morning (I don't know if you knew that or not, nor do I know if you care about it) but I managed to finish this one-shot this afternoon. So here it is!**

 **Thank you again to Owllover34 for the idea of the prank war, I really appreciate your prompts!**

 **However, now that I have the documents for Reality Check back, once I've written all of the prompts I have stored up now I won't be posting on this story any more…at least not any time soon. I'm really sorry if this is bad news for you but Reality Check was my original story and right now it's my main priority. Don't worry, like I said, I'll be writing out all of the remaining prompts but I'd really appreciate it if you didn't leave me any more for now, just because I'd like to get back to writing and updating Reality Check properly as quickly as possible. I really hope that you understand. :)**

 **Anyway, here's what you came for! This is a Struts & Lugnut one-shot and it's called: Hot Pink Baby Powder**

"Lugnut, I'm tellin' ya, buddy, the look on her face was priceless," Butchy chuckled, still laughing over the success of the hair-cutting prank he had just played on his girlfriend. As soon as Butchy had walked away from the seething surfer girl and her friends, he had pretty much sprinted over to Lugnut to share the news. After all, he wasn't going to let an opportunity like this just pass by.

"And you's is tellin' me this because…?" Lugnut asked, shooting the Rodents leader a blank expression.

"Cause it was freakin' hilarious!" Butchy exclaimed, having to restrain himself from bursting out laughing again.

"She's gonna be so mad at you," Lugnut snickered, finding Butchy's excitable behaviour rather amusing.

"No she's not," Butchy said, brushing Lugnut's comment off without a second thought. "Plus, it's just Coral," he continued, obviously underestimating his girlfriend. "What's the worst she can do?"

"Have ya seen her when Axel gets on her nerves?" Lugnut asked, raising one of his eyebrows at his best friend.

"But she doesn't like Axel," Butchy replied simply, although to Lugnut it sounded like he was avoiding the answer.

"And she likes you?" Lugnut teased, earning a light thump on the arm from Butchy.

"Yeah, actually, and that's my point," Butchy said as Lugnut gave him a puzzled look.

"You got a point?" Lugnut asked in mock disbelief. "There's a point to all of this?"

"Yeah, I'm not an idiot," Butchy said, sending his right-hand-man a small frown.

"You had me fooled, Boss," Lugnut chuckled, knowing that he was pushing the limit of how far he could get away with poking fun Butchy without any consequences.

"Look," Butchy started, deciding to ignore Lugnut's comments and get to his point. "Cause I'm Coral's boyfriend, she's not gonna want to do anythin' bad to me. But she's also not gonna want anything like that to happen to her again."

"So?" Lugnut questioned, not yet seeing where Butchy was taking this explanation.

"So, she's gonna be extra nice to me," Butchy finished with a smug smile. "Cause if she's nice to me then I won't even think about pullin' another prank on her."

"Sure, that's gonna work," Lugnut said sarcastically before rolling his eyes and turning to leave.

"Lugnut, buddy, trust me," Butchy said with a little too much confidence than he should have had. "I knows girls, this can't possibly fail."

"Well…" Lugnut trailed off, coming to the realisation that Butchy did seem to have a pretty good past with girls. And by 'good' he means that he managed to flirt with a lot of them.

"You want Struts to stop barkin' at ya, right?" Butchy checked, starting to come up with another of his 'brilliant' ideas.

"Yeah, I suppose," Lugnut mumbled, hating to admit that his girlfriend kept telling him off. Although Struts and Lugnut were two complete lovebirds most of the time, lately Struts had been snapping at Lugnut if he stepped out of line. Basically, it was starting to get on _his_ nerves when he got on _her_ nerves.

"Prank her," Butchy said, isolating each word and shooting a challenging smile at his fellow biker boy, waiting to see if his wingman would rise to the occasion.

"Yous is in luck 'cause I's gots the perfect idea," Lugnut replied, a sly smile sliding onto his face as the plan began to form in his head.

* * *

The next morning, Lugnut got a call from his girlfriend telling him that the charger for her hairdryer was broken. Luckily, Lela had the same version. So Struts told Lugnut to stop by Lela and Butchy's house to pick up Lela's hairdryer and charger and then drop it off at her place. Perfect. Lugnut did exactly what his girlfriend had told him to do, he collected the charger from Lela's house without any trouble, although he decided to ignore the fact that Butchy was soaking wet and grumbling to himself as he mopped up a huge puddle of water from his bedroom floor. However, when he arrived at Struts' house, before handing over the hairdryer, he decided to put his plan into action and tamper with it first.

Struts came scurrying down the stairs once she heard Lugnut knocking on the door and threw it open once she reached it. "Thank you so much, Sweetie, you're a life saver," Struts babbled breathlessly, her damp hair clinging to her shoulders and wetting the fabric of her nightgown.

"You're welcome, Honey," Lugnut called, but Struts was already running back up the stairs to re-join her fellow biker girls in her bedroom. Lugnut could have just closed the door and strolled back down the driveway to his bike, but that would have been too easy. And anyway, Lugnut wasn't about to just walk away without getting a reaction from his girlfriend. It was no longer than thirty seconds until Lugnut heard the noise of the hairdryer whirring into life. But almost immediately after that screams echoed from Struts' bedroom, which were followed by the hairdryer being shut off and Struts flinging open her bedroom door. As soon as Lugnut caught sight of her he had to mentally restrain himself from dissolving into a puddle of laughter. The left side of the biker girl's face and body was completely covered in baby powder, making her look an awful lot like a pathetic excuse for a ghost. When Struts had turned on the hairdryer, the baby powder that Lugnut had poured into the barrel before knocking on his girlfriend's front door had clouded out and coated the surprised biker girl's face, leaving her in a complete state of shock.

"Lugnut?!" she screeched, storming across the landing so that she was stood at the top of the staircase.

"Yeah, Honey?" Lugnut asked, trying his best to not burst out laughing at his girlfriend's appearance.

"Did you do this?!" Struts continued, motioning to the baby powder that clung to her clothes, hair and skin.

"Possibly," Lugnut chuckled, biting the inside of his cheek to stop himself from laughing.

"I'm not playin' games, Lugnut," Struts barked, flinging her arms around in frustration as she watched him stifle another chuckle. "This ain't funny!"

"You're right, it's not funny," Lugnut said, having to hide his smile behind his hand because if he didn't then Struts would have seen him grinning like the Cheshire Cat. "It's hilarious," he added, letting out a laugh that he was finding harder and harder to contain.

"No it's not!" Struts cried, stamping her foot as she glared at her boyfriend. But it didn't really have the right effect considering that she was wearing fluffy, baby pink slippers and she was stood on carpet. "You're in so much trouble," she muttered, starting to march back into her bedroom. "Is this your idea of a joke?!" Struts demanded, turning swiftly on her heels and striding back over to the top of the staircase to scold Lugnut some more.

"Maybe," Lugnut answered calmly, again having to hide his smile that came from the amusement of teasing his girlfriend, no matter how bad he felt about it.

"Yes or no?" Struts growled, leaving a pause between each word as she stared daggers at her boyfriend. He knew how much she hated indirect answers so he really wasn't helping to improve her mood.

"Uh huh," Lugnut chuckled, finding that the longer he stared at Struts' baby powder covered body, the funnier it seemed.

"What a stupid idea," Struts spat, trying to brush some of the baby powder off her nightgown. "I bet you was thinkin', 'oh yeah, let's fill my idiot of a girlfriend's hairdryer with baby powder and see how much I can ruin her day.' Do you have any idea how much mess that's made in my room?! I'm gonna have to get ready all over again! I look awful!" Struts ranted, starting to pace across the landing.

"I think you look great," Lugnut said, knowing full well that he was really pushing it with Struts' temper.

"Oh shut up, Lugnut," Struts snapped, crossing her arms over her chest and continuing to glare at her boyfriend.

"Do you want me to help ya clean up?" Lugnut asked, trying to genuinely helpful now because he didn't want to see Struts completely flip out on him.

"Oh you've done more than enough," Struts grumbled, trudging down the stairs. "Just go, Lugnut," she barked, pointing towards the driveway and holding the door open for her boyfriend, who willingly obeyed her orders and sauntered away. But as soon as she slammed the door shut, she heard him roaring with laughter as he walked back to his bike. "Ugh," she sighed, pressing her back against the door. CheeChee and Lela emerged from Struts' bedroom just as the biker girl started to slide down into a sitting position on the floor and pull her knees up to her chest, leaving a trail of smudgy baby powder on the door.

"Lugnut's proving to be a little bit difficult, huh?" Lela said, padding down the stairs with CheeChee not too far behind her.

"I'm not even gonna ask if you heard all that," Struts huffed, pretty much certain that the two biker girls couldn't have helped but listen, she had been shouting rather loudly after all.

"Hey, it's not your fault, he's the one that targeted you in the first place," Lela said, sitting down on the floor next to the biker girl.

"I know," Struts sighed, feeling quite empty after her huge rant. "I feel kinda bad now though," she added, looking down at her knees and lightly gnawing on her bottom lip. "For, you know, shoutin' at him."

"Hey, you's got nothin' to feel bad about, 'kay?" CheeChee said, standing in front of Struts with one hand on her hip. "If Lugnut thinks that he can mess with ya then you gotta show him that he can't."

"Can I do that?" Struts asked cautiously, unsure if CheeChee's way of handling the situation was the right way to go.

"Sure you can! Remember what Mack told us?" Lela said, turning to face Struts with an excitable glint in her icy blue eyes.

"Not really," Struts sniffed, glancing across at her friend before staring back down at her knees.

"We can do anything a guy can do," Lela said, recalling what Mack had drilled into Lela the first time that she had showed up in Wet Side Story.

"Whatcha sayin'?" Struts asked warily, sensing that Lela was getting an idea.

"I'm saying that if Lugnut can prank you like that, then you can prank Lugnut back," Lela explained, watching with delight as Struts' expression started to change.

"Ya think?" Struts asked, her eyes flitting back and forth between her two friends.

"We _know_ ," CheeChee clarified, following her comment up with one of her signature giggles.

"Well before I start plannin' anythin' you two had better help me get ready," Struts chuckled, stretching her legs out in front of her and leaning her head back against the front door.

"Come on, I can't wait to plan your outfit!" Lela squealed, holding her hand out to the biker girl sat next to her.

"How do ya plan an outfit for this kinda thing?" Struts laughed, taking Lela's hand and starting to stand up.

"Trust me, I got the perfect shade of lip gloss for revenge," CheeChee said, making all three girls burst into fits of giggles before racing upstairs to get ready.

* * *

Struts, Lela and CheeChee all crowded around the small table in the hallway that was the home for Struts' telephone. As Struts dialled the number for Lugnut's house, she quickly checked over her shoulder to make sure that everything was set up. She bit her lip as the phone began to ring on the other end and a nervous, yet excited, feeling crept into her stomach.

"Hello?" Lugnut's voice crackled through the phone and made Struts' heart leap.

"Hey, Sweetie, can you come and pick me up, please?" Struts asked sweetly as CheeChee and Lela started to giggle behind her. "My bike's got a flat tire and I can't fix it 'til later, I need a ride to Big Momma's," she continued, blatantly lying to her boyfriend. But at least she was trying to make her prank believable.

"Sure thing, Honey, I'll be there in two," Lugnut said, dropping the line as soon as he'd finished speaking. Even though Struts couldn't see him, she could tell that he had been smiling. The soft, small smile that he only ever got when he was in her company. This was just another thing to fuel the pang of guilt that was growing in her stomach.

"This is gonna be great," CheeChee giggled, crossing her arms across her chest as a mischievous smile spread across her face.

"I'm so excited; I've never pranked anyone like this before!" Lela squealed, practically bouncing up and down on the spot with a big grin.

"It's not your prank though, Lela," Struts chuckled, trying to take her mind off the imminent revenge plan.

"I still helped to plan it though," Lela said with a giggle and an even bigger grin, if that was possible.

Lugnut kept his promise because a few minutes after he'd hung up on Struts, the sound of his motorbike pulling onto her drive made the biker girl practically jump out of her skin. "He's here!" she exclaimed. The three flustered biker girls all hurried into the living room and half-closed the door, waiting for Lugnut to discover his girlfriend's surprise for him.

"Struts? You ready to go?" Lugnut called, knocking on the front door, which was left slightly ajar.

But Struts didn't reply.

"Struts?" Lugnut called again, this time a little bit louder.

Once again Struts remained silent.

"Struts, are ya ready to go or not?" Lugnut sighed, pushing the door fully open and stepping into the hall. But oddly, instead of stepping onto the wooden floorboards he stepped onto a sky blue tarpaulin sheet. "What the-?" he started to mumble as he pushed the door closed behind him. However, this launched Struts' plan into action. The act of Lugnut closing the door made a bucket of paint, which was balanced on top of the front door, to tumble from its spot and completely drench him in hot pink paint. The tin clattered to the floor behind the biker boy as Lugnut just froze, he was rooted to the spot and the paint was dripping off him and making tiny puddles on the tarpaulin cover. "Struts," Lugnut said slowly, not daring to move in case he made an even bigger mess.

"Yeah?" Struts chuckled, peeking out from behind the door that led to her living room.

"What the heck's this?" Lugnut asked, quite obviously referring to fuchsia paint that had been dumped all over him.

"Just a little bit of revenge," Struts replied, shooting her boyfriend a sweet but teasing smile. CheeChee and Lela appeared behind her, both laughing uncontrollably at Lugnut's appearance.

"This is gonna take so long to clean up," Lugnut complained, looking down at his paint-covered leather jacket in despair.

"Not for me, I put that cover down for a reason," Struts said smugly, stepping out from the living room doorway.

"This is so unfair," Lugnut grumbled, trying to wipe some of the paint off. But instead he ended up with pink-stained hands.

"Well I had to clean up the mess you made with the baby powder earlier," Struts said simply, leaning her back against the wall and blowing a bubble with her bubblegum.

"That was just baby powder, this is _paint_ ," Lugnut exclaimed, looking at his girlfriend like she'd said the stupidest thing in the world.

"Ya weren't gonna learn ya lesson if my prank wasn't as bad as yours though, were ya?" Struts asked, tipping her head to the side and raising one of her eyebrows at the biker boy.

"Ugh," Lugnut sighed, rolling his eyes as stepping back slightly. But this only made him trip over the paint can that was lying on its side behind him.

"You's ok there?" Struts asked, trying to stifle a giggle as Lugnut almost fell flat on his back.

"No, I look like an idiot," Lugnut huffed, attempting to regain his balance again and accidentally flicking paint in his girlfriend's direction.

"I think you look great," Struts said, mimicking what Lugnut had said to her earlier as she dodged the flying droplets of hot pink paint.

"Oh, shut up, Struts," Lugnut grumbled, unintentionally copying what Struts had said in reply to his comment this morning. "I bet you's is gonna offer to help me clean up now too," he huffed, shooting his girlfriend an unimpressed look.

"Well if ya insist," Struts chuckled as she shot Lugnut a big smile. "You're not goin' on ya bike though, I'm walkin' ya home."

"What?! Why?!" Lugnut whined as a horrified expression completely took over his face.

"'Cause then I can show off how great ya look to people," Struts giggled, tottering over to her boyfriend in her signature pink stilettos. "Plus, we match now," she added, beginning to inflate another bubble with her bubblegum.

"How do we's match?" Lugnut asked, not catching on to the point that Struts was trying to make.

"Well your fresh coat of paint matches my shoes," Struts answered once the bubble she'd been blowing had burst. She grinned at her boyfriend yet again and flicked her leg up behind her to show off her hot pink high heels.

"Not good enough," Lugnut said simply as an idea popped into his head.

"Huh?" Struts asked as her eyebrows knitted and her lips turned from a large smile to a slight frown within milliseconds.

Lugnut took another step towards his girlfriend so that they were now stood directly opposite each other. There was barely a foot between them. Lugnut slowly reached across and smeared hot pink paint across Struts' cheek with his thumb. A mischievous smile twisted its way onto his lips as he worked, whereas Struts' lips parted and dropped open to the point where her piece of bubblegum was in danger of sliding into a puddle of paint on the floor.

"Now we match," Lugnut said smugly, standing back to admire his work.

"Lugnut!" Struts scolded, but she didn't really sound as angry as she had intended to. She couldn't really stay mad at her boyfriend anyway when he looked so adorable with that smile on his face. "At least make it match," she said after a short pause, making Lugnut let out his own chuckle. The biker boy obeyed and smudged an identical line of pink paint across Struts' other cheek. She ended up looking like a rather girly soldier, who was about to go into battle. However, whilst Lugnut was leaning in close to Struts' face, she stole a kiss. It was quick and it took her boyfriend by surprise but that didn't stop him from grinning like an idiot. "I'll give ya another one once you're all cleaned up," Struts whispered, letting out a small giggle straight after she'd spoken.

"Well we better be goin' then," Lugnut announced, obviously not wanting to delay his forthcoming kiss any longer.

"Wait," Struts said, turning around to quickly grab something from the telephone table behind her. "One finishing touch," she giggled, digging her hand into a bag of glitter before turning back to her boyfriend. She stood on her tip-toes and opened her palm, letting the tiny, shimmering particles rain down on the biker boy and stick in the paint. "Perfect," Struts giggled before practically shoving Lugnut out of the door. She laughed off his complaints as she walked him down the street, managing to prevent any more paint getting on her and succeeding in keeping as much as possible on Lugnut. It was funny though, now that she'd actually carried out the prank, she relished in Lugnut's embarrassment. I guess that mischief got the better of both of them!

 **I really hope that you enjoyed it!**

 **I'm sorry that it took me so long to post again! Like always, I've had a really busy week so I haven't had much time to write. :/**

 **The next one-shot is going to be centred around Lela & Tanner but TKDP left the great suggestion for a Butchy/Lela prank, so I think that I'm going to try to include that as well. :) So thank you TKDP! Also, little shout-out to her, TKDP just posted a one-shot story for crossover ships and I think that it's a really cool idea! You should definitely check it out; I know that she'd appreciate it! **

**Thank you so much for reading!**

 **-cherrygorilla**


	9. Prank After Prank After Prank - Part 3

**Hello!**

 **How are you?**

 **I know that last week I said that I wouldn't be taking anymore prompts for one-shots but I still got a few suggestions and indications that people have more ideas. So what I'm going to say is: leave any prompts that you would like me to write in a review for this chapter (or as soon as possible) and I can add it to the list. I want to write all of the ideas that people have now because I don't want you waiting until I get back around to this story once I've finished Reality Check since that won't be for quite a while. Leave me any prompts if you have them because once I've gotten through them all, I won't be coming back to this story any time soon. I can't wait to hear what you come up with!**

 **I also want to say thank you to a few people. Thank you Owllover34 for having the idea for this prank war series and for coming up with the idea for Lugnut's prank from last chapter (I'm sorry, I just forgot to mention it but I still wanted to give you credit). Thank you TKDP for suggesting that I do a ButchyxLela prank and for leaving the idea for one of the pranks in this story. And thank you TeenBeachGirl101 for suggesting a prank that I used in this story (I did change the prank slightly though, I really hope that you don't mind!)**

 **Anyway, enough of my rambling, here's the one-shot: Pineapple Glitter Is Not Toothpaste!**

After listening to numerous different accounts of the pranks that had gone on in the past twenty four hours, Lela was thankful to be leaving the hangout spot where the stories of the jokes were flying from person to person like manic hummingbirds, often getting twisted beyond recognition so that the original had next to no meaning anymore. The heels of her baby pink, knee-high boots clicked along the pavement, sending echoes down the almost silent street of houses. They all had neat gardens and brightly coloured front doors with flowers in boxes beneath windows in vibrant jewel tones. The homes all looked identical from the way that they were lined up, side-by-side, but each one had their own quirks, making each one different to the next if you took the time to look. Lela quietly walked behind her older brother, obediently waiting while he fumbled with his set of keys to open the front door. The siblings stepped inside and the feeling of being home washed over them. The comforting glow of the hallway lightbulb that made everything look slightly more yellow than usual, the faint smell of the strawberry buttercream scented candle that Lela constantly left open but never bothered to burn and the dark, mahogany staircase that greeted you almost immediately after you walked through the door all contributed to the sensation. The siblings said their goodnights and parted ways.

Lela went to get ready in her bedroom and waited until she heard the familiar, steady thuds that indicated her older brother ascending the stairs. She was running her hairbrush through her sleek raven locks as she heard him approaching and the biker girl couldn't stop the grin creeping onto her face. The suspense built up more and more as she sat expectantly, craving the reaction she knew that she would get once her brother discovered the surprise that she had left for him. Ever since she had learned from Struts that Butchy had been the one to persuade Lugnut to prank his girlfriend, Lela knew that he needed to be taught a lesson. Little did she know that her brother had already been taught his own lesson, so her action was pretty unnecessary. Well, not completely unnecessary. Butchy would just have had two pranks pulled on him in one day. And after helping Struts prepare her prank for Lugnut that morning, Lela had been desperate to pull one off herself.

The sound of running water splattering into the sink basin made Lela's stomach flip in anticipation; it wouldn't be much longer now. Almost a minute passed until she finally heard the sound of more thudding footsteps, this time growing louder with every step, until eventually Lela's bedroom door was flung open.

"Uh, Sis?" Butchy asked, although his words were slightly muffled by the toothbrush that he was still holding in his mouth.

"Yeah, Butchy?" Lela asked innocently, glancing at her brother's reflection in her mirror and trying her hardest not to let a laugh escape her mouth.

"Have ya used the toothpaste yet?" Butchy asked, leaning against the doorframe of his sister's room.

"No, why'd you ask?" Lela asked, once again appearing to be oblivious to the issue so that she didn't give anything away.

"'Cause I think we's should throw it out," Butchy answered, grimacing as he tried to move the toothbrush around his mouth again.

"Why?" Lela asked casually, pressing her lips together to hide her smile.

"I think it's gone bad," Butchy replied as his eyebrows creased together, yet again getting a wave of nausea that he had experienced four times already from the bizarre taste of the toothpaste.

"How? We only bought it last week," Lela chirped, her eyebrows knitting to match her brother's concern.

"I dunno," Butchy huffed. "I do know that it's makin' my mouth feel funny though," he added, once again wincing at the taste.

"Maybe that's because it's not toothpaste," Lela replied simply, a small smile working its way onto her face as she looked down at her hair, sneaking glances at her brother's changing expression in the mirror.

"What?" Butchy asked after a pause where he just stared at Lela's reflection in the mirror, since the back of her head was facing him. Surely he'd misheard his sister. At least, that's what he hoped.

"It's not toothpaste," Lela repeated, gently running her hairbrush through the ends of her hair and still stealing glances at her older brother.

"Well what is it then?!" Butchy exclaimed, promptly removing the toothbrush from his mouth in disgust.

"Mouth-numbing gel," Lela said, her eyes finally moving upwards to look at her brother properly, only to see him running back to the bathroom.

"What the heck, Sis! Why'd ya think of somethin' like that?!" Butchy cried between coughs, manically rinsing his mouth out with water and spitting the remaining 'toothpaste' into the sink.

"I wanted to prank you," Lela said, appearing in the doorway behind her brother with a satisfied grin.

"Why?" Butchy asked, his mouth slightly hanging open as he stared at his sister in disbelief, a small droplet of water hanging from his bottom lip and threatening to fall into the sink basin.

"Well I wanted to prank someone…and you kinda deserve it," Lela replied, letting out a small giggle at Butchy's shocked expression.

"My last statement still stands," Butchy said, not feeling like Lela's answer was enough.

"Well you were the one that told Lugnut to prank Struts so I feel like you needed to be taught a lesson. You can't go around starting things like that, Butchy. It pretty much spells out trouble," Lela clarified, throwing in a quick scolding along with her explanation.

Butchy was too tired to bother trying to explain to Lela that he'd already been 'taught his lesson' and frankly, his mouth was too numb to even speak properly anyway. So he settled for just complaining, "I can't even feel my mouth now." The biker boy's words slurred together slightly as he lost more and more control of his lips. The mouth-numbing gel was definitely starting to take effect.

"Good," Lela giggled, finding that the way that Butchy was talking to be getting funnier and funnier.

"Whatever," Butchy grumbled, pushing past his sister to exit the bathroom.

"Good night, Butchy," Lela called in cheery tone, still on a high from pulling off her prank so well.

"Night," Butchy huffed curtly, closing his bedroom door behind him as soon as he stepped inside. Obviously, he hadn't seen the funny side to Lela's prank yet, unlike his little sister, who skipped over to the sink and took the real toothpaste out from the cabinet underneath the sink. She'd never been so triumphant whilst brushing her teeth and she didn't think that she would ever be again; it was a slightly obscure emotion and action match after all.

* * *

The next morning as Lela scurried down the stairs she was met with the rare sound of rain splattering against the window panes. It hardly ever rained in Wet Side Story since it was supposed to be an ideal summer destination…or something like that. But sometimes you just need a rainy day, even in a perfect tropical paradise. The biker girl slipped on her pink leather jacket and grabbed her frilly, red and white polka-dotted umbrella from where it was leaning against the wall beside the front door. She picked up her house keys from the dish next to the telephone, easily being able to tell her own apart from her brother's due to the sheer amount of kitschy keyrings that adorned her bunch of keys, before stepping outside. Only a few raindrops splashed onto her skin in the space of time between her exiting the house and opening up her umbrella. But the biker girl was met with quite a shock when she put that umbrella up. As the umbrella's spotted fabric unfurled above her head, she was showered, not with rain, but with glitter. Glitter wasn't the only item falling on her though, after a few seconds, multi-coloured feathers floated into her line of vision. A few of them landed on her head but most of the just fluttered to the ground and found their place in a large yet shallow puddle on the driveway.

"Um, everythin' ok, Sis?" Butchy asked, stopping a few steps before he reached the bottom of the staircase because he wasn't exactly sure yet if he was imagining his sister covered in feathers or not.

"I don't really know," Lela said slowly, trying to decide for herself if all of that had really just come out of her umbrella.

"It's an interestin' look, I'll give you's that," Butchy chuckled, grabbing his leather jacket, which was hanging over the staircase's banister.

"I don't understand…" Lela trailed off, starting to stiffly brush herself off.

"I think yous been pranked, Lela," Butchy said, strolling up behind his sister with an amused smile tugging at his lips.

"What?" Lela questioned, her expression plainly showing how confused she was.

"Someone's pranked ya, Sis," Butchy clarified, brushing a pile of glitter and feathers off Lela's shoulder before laying his hand there.

"Was it you?" Lela asked warily, stepping back from her older brother before shooting him a questioning look. "Is this revenge for last night?"

"No! Course not, I don't work that fast, Sis," Butchy said defensively, crossing his arms over his chest.

"Well who is it then?" Lela asked, taking a step back towards her brother, a little guilty that she'd been so quick to blame Butchy for this.

"Obviously someone who wants to make ya look a little bit stupid," Butchy said, sliding his sunglasses onto the bridge of his nose, even though the sun was hidden behind a sky of rainclouds.

"But…who?" Lela asked, her eyebrows creasing in the centre as she looked up at her brother like he knew the answer.

"I's just takin' a guess but…" Butchy trailed off, taking Lela's shoulders and spinning her around to look down the driveway. Across the road the biker girl saw a very familiar blue car slowly pulling away from the curb. As Lela looked more closely she could make out the faces of a handful of surfers, including her boyfriend. Tanner was sat in the passenger seat and even though she couldn't fully see him, she could still tell that he was laughing his head off and giving high-fives to the other surfers in the car.

"Tanner did this?" Lela asked, admittedly feeling quite betrayed by the hunky male lead.

"It sure does look like it," Butchy said, his eyes trained on the vehicle as it rolled away.

"Why would he do something like this though?" Lela asked, letting out a defeated sigh as the car drove out of sight.

"Sis, it's glitter and feathers, it's not like it's the end of the world," Butchy said, raising one of his eyebrows at his sister.

"I guess you're right," Lela sighed, letting out a small laugh as she realised how ridiculous it was that she had gotten so hurt by a few feathers and a packet of fluorescent pink and orange glitter.

"I always am," Butchy said smugly, starting to stroll down the driveway to his bike.

"Yeah right," Lela said, rolling her eyebrows at her brother's cocky behaviour. But just as Butchy was swinging his leg over his biker, a thought popped into Lela's glittery, feather-covered head. "I've gotta prank him back," she piped up, a determined smile slowly forming on her face.

"You do's?" Butchy asked, shooting his sister a questioning look as he lowered himself into the seat of his motorbike.

"Yep, I've gotta prove that I can prank him just as well as he can prank me," Lela said, gaining more and more confidence in herself pulling this off as she continued to think about it.

"Ok, but how are ya gonna do that?" Butchy asked, leaning forward slightly and holding himself up by bracing his arms as he gripped the handlebars.

"I just told him a few days ago that I'm allergic to pineapple," Lela said as an idea started to flourish in her head, shocking herself with how bad it sounded. "Maybe I could use that to my advantage."

"Oh great, here we go's," Butchy huffed, rolling his eyes as Lela started to excitedly scuttle around and plan out her prank.

"Right, I'll start planning it out as soon as I've had another shower," Lela announced before skipping back into the house.

" _Another_ shower? Why?" Butchy called, craning his neck to try to see if Lela really was running upstairs again.

"I think Tanner put glue in my hairspray, the glitter's sticking to my hair," Lela shouted back, not bothering to look back over her shoulder to see if Butchy was following her because she knew that he wouldn't be.

"I'll just see ya at Big Momma's," Butchy sighed, revving the engine of his bike, sliding his helmet over his head and then pulling out of the driveway.

"Meet ya there, Butchy," Lela called even though she knew that her older brother was already halfway down the road by now.

* * *

It was around six o'clock that evening when Lela finally decided to set her plan into action. She hadn't really seen Tanner all day after the incident that morning, he'd been out on the waves most of the time so she thought that it would be better to just leave the matter until later. The raven-haired girl was stood by the fruit punch bowl on the snack table when the surfers all bounded through the double doors of Big Momma's. They all scattered within seconds, each one running off in a different direction, but, like always, Tanner made his way over to her straight away.

"Hey, Lela," he greeted, tearing towards the biker girl with a big, goofy grin on his face.

"Hi, Tanner," Lela smiled, all of her frustration with him melting away as soon as she caught sight of him. But that didn't last for long, she was soon set back on pranking him.

"You look really pretty today," Tanner grinned, showering Lela with compliments like he always did. It didn't take long for some of the other surfers joined him; Seacat, Giggles and Rascal were never far behind their leader.

"Thank you," Lela said, quickly glancing down at her outfit and swishing the skirt of her pink sundress before meeting Tanner's gaze again. It was only for a second though because, as usual, Tanner got distracted. He gets distracted very easily, especially when he's excited.

"Ooh, fruit punch!" Tanner exclaimed, his eyes lighting up as he took a step closer to the table. The other three surfers all followed his actions, crowding around the snack table to get to the punch bowl before anyone else.

"So, Tanner, how was your day?" Lela asked, casually trying to strike up a conversation between her and her boyfriend once he had poured himself a glass of the fruit juice.

"Oh, it was so groovy! The waves were really big so we got to do a ton of surfing but then we didn't want to go swimming after lunch so we played a game of volleyball, which was super fun and by that time we could go back in the water so we surfed even more-" Tanner babbled, starting to ramble and speak quicker the further into the story he got.

Eventually, Lela just wanted to get her prank over with. Although it didn't look like Tanner was going to stop talking any time soon, so she just had to interrupt him. "Uh, Tanner?" she cut in, stopping Tanner in his tracks halfway through a word.

"Yeah, Lela?" he asked, turning to Lela with an expectant but slightly questioning smile.

"Is there any pineapple in this?" Lela asked, pointing to her cup of fruit punch and trying her hardest to look worried.

"I don't know, I can check though," Tanner smiled, the severity of the situation not fully sinking in for him yet. "There's oranges, lemons, strawberries, watermelon and pineapple," he announced, his eyebrows slightly furrowing as he concentrated on reading the ingredients off the little tag beside the bowl. "So yeah, there's pineapple in it," he said, once again grinning goofily at Lela since he hadn't realised the repercussions of the piece of fruit yet. Then it finally hit him. "Oh no, there's pineapple in it!" he cried, flinging his arms about as he started to panic. He didn't think when he was throwing his arms around though, because he ended up hurling his entire cup of the fruit punch in Rascal's face. Giggles scampered behind Seacat, trying to avoid getting splashed by the juice, but Rascal had nowhere to run to, so he got drenched.

"There's pineapple in it," Rascal repeated, still managing to be the human equivalent of a parrot even though he was dripping with fruit punch.

"I think we gathered that," Seacat sighed, trying to pry Giggles off his arm before grabbing a handful of napkins and passing them to the surfer boy beside him.

"Have you had any of it?" Tanner asked, suddenly setting into a more serious side of himself that Lela had rarely ever seen.

"Yeah," Lela managed to say, kind of taken aback by Tanner's authorative nature. She hadn't had any of the drink though; she was just lying to make Tanner panic so that she could teach him a lesson.

"What happens when you have a reaction to it? Do you have to take a tablet or something?" Tanner asked, snatching the glass of fruit punch out of Lela's grasp and thrusting it in Seacat's direction, expecting him to take it away from him.

"Uh huh," Lela said, watching as the glass was passed down the line of surfers until it was put back on the table that she had originally picked it up from.

"Come on, we've gotta get you home," Tanner said, an edge of urgency to his voice as he clutched Lela's forearms and began to lead her towards the door.

"Erm…" Lela murmured. Instead of willingly allowing Tanner to tug her outside though, she found herself digging her heels in and resisting him, probably because the guilt of lying like this to him was starting to get to her.

"What's wrong, Sweetie?" Tanner asked, whipping back around to face his girlfriend with an extremely concerned expression written across his face. "You're alright to walk home, right?" he continued, clasping Lela's hands in his and giving them a reassuring squeeze.

"Um…" Lela trailed off again, at a loss for words because she felt like she'd lost control of the situation.

"Oh gosh," Tanner sighed, his level of panic sky-rocketing through the roof. Before Lela could say anything to attempt to calm him down, Tanner had already swept the biker girl off her feet and was carrying her bridal style as he started to speed-walk towards the door. Lela gripped onto Tanner's shoulder for fear of falling out of his arms, which definitely seemed like a possibility considering how fast he was moving.

"Jeepers! Where are you two headin' off in such a hurry?" Struts exclaimed just as she was about to get trampled by the couple. Butchy, Lugnut, CheeChee and Struts had all lazily sauntered into the restaurant expecting to be met with the lively atmosphere and excited buzz of noise that came from the beach hangout spot, not to almost be crushed by the head of the surfers sprinting towards them with one of their fellow bikers in his arms.

"Lela had an allergic reaction," Tanner practically screamed at them, trying to dodge past them as soon as he'd spoken. "I've gotta get her back to her house.

"Really? 'Cause she doesn't really look like she's in any trouble to me," CheeChee drawled, raising one of her eyebrows at Tanner as her eyes flitted from the surfer boy to the girl in his arms and back again.

"What?" Tanner questioned, stealing a glance at Lela and then having to do a double take because he saw that she was laughing. "Uh, Lela…what are you doing?" he asked, rather puzzled by Lela's change of behaviour.

"Laughing, Tanner," Lela giggled, her laughs soft as a side effect of how nervous she felt. She was definitely having second thoughts about the prank that she had just pulled. But what could she do about it now?

"W…why?" Tanner asked, still firmly clutching his girlfriend because to him this hadn't stopped being a dangerous situation yet. He still thought that all of this was real.

"Cause I was joking, Tanner. I didn't really have any of the fruit punch," Lela said, trying to tell Tanner that she had just been messing with him as gently as possible. She had no idea that he was going to take it that seriously.

Tanner just stared at Lela for a few seconds, his girlfriend's words slowly working their way through his head. Once he finally managed to process everything that Lela had just said, he opened his mouth to speak. "Oh," he stuttered, clumsily placing Lela back on her feet. He let out a laugh but it seemed forced and really awkward. Lela felt abolutely terrible about it and she knew that she had to explain herself or she would continue to feel that way for who knows how long.

"Tanner, can I talk to you?" Lela asked, fiddling with her fingers as she locked her gaze with her boyfriend.

"Sure," Tanner replied, forcing a bright smile onto his face to mask how embarrassed he felt.

"I really didn't think that you would take it that seriously, Tanner. I'm really sorry," Lela said, apologising after the pair had stepped off to the side to get some privacy.

"Of course I was going to take it seriously, Lela. I didn't want anything bad to happen to you, I never would. You know that, right?" Tanner said, laying one of his hands on the biker girl's shoulder with his ocean blue eyes focused directly on her. "You mean too much to me for me to allow that to happen."

"I know," Lela smiled, shyly avoiding Tanner's gaze. "I guess I was just mad from this morning, I wanted to teach you a lesson."

"This morning? What did I…oh yeah," Tanner sighed, remembering the prank that he had set up and watched from his car with the surfer guys. "Wait, you weren't angry, were you?"

"Yeah, kinda," Lela admitted, too embarrassed to look at Tanner properly.

"Oh, Lela, I'm sorry. I was trying to make you laugh; I thought that you'd find it funny," Tanner said, quickly wrapping his girlfriend into a hug, which she gladly returned.

"Well I did, just not at the time," Lela confessed, pressing her cheek against Tanner's chest as he embraced her even tighter. "Oh, Tanner, I really messed up, didn't I?"

"Not really, I get it," Tanner reassured her, stepping back out of the hug a little bit so that he could look at her again.

"You do?" Lela asked, quirking one of her eyebrows at her boyfriend.

"Yeah, I should have thought about my prank a bit more before I did it, I didn't think about it ruining your hair or getting on your clothes," Tanner said, sliding his arms down so that they nestled around Lela's waist.

"It's fine. I should have thought about mine more too, I shouldn't have lied like that," Lela said, letting her gaze fall to the floor for a few seconds during a pause in the conversation before bringing it back up to look at Tanner again. "I guess both of our ideas were a little bit silly," she said, a small giggle escaping her lips.

"We're not exactly the best pranksters, are we?" Tanner chuckled, a genuine smile forming on his face this time from hearing the sound of his girlfriend's laughter.

"Nope," Lela giggled, sharing a laugh with the surfer boy, who had stolen her heart. "How about we promise never to attempt something like this again?" she suggested, silently praying that Tanner would agree because she didn't really want to have to put herself through the process of pranking someone again any time soon.

"I like that idea," Tanner smiled, leaning in and planting a kiss on Lela's forehead.

"Pinky promise?" Lela questioned, raising her hand up in front of her and Tanner with her little finger pointing to the roof.

"Pinky promise," Tanner agreed, letting out a small chuckle as he wrapped his little finger around Lela's.

Lela and Tanner weren't very good at pranking each other. So what? That didn't bother them at all. They were perfectly content with just happily swanning through life in each other's arms. But Lela _had_ managed to successfully prank her brother, so that was enough to call a triumph for her, right?

 **I really hope that you enjoyed it!**

 **Like I always say, I'm sorry that it took so long to post, I'm just really busy. I'm trying my best though, I promise!**

 **The next one-shot is going to be the last in this prank series so I thought that I'd finish it off with Mack and Brady. I'm really excited to start writing that one because I have some really cool pranks thought out! So I hope that you're excited for that!**

 **Thank you so much for reading! I couldn't ask for better readers, your support is the best!**

 **-cherrygorilla**


	10. Prank After Prank After Prank - Part 4

**Hello!**

 **How have you been?**

 **Thank you so much for the suggestions that I got last chapter, I'll definitely be adding them to my list! I'll try my best to get them written but I'm going back to school tomorrow so updates might be a bit slower than usual. I will try my hardest not to take forever though, I promise!**

 **I don't really have anything else to say before you start reading so…I hope that you like it! Here's the last instalment of the prank war series: Clockwork Fish Tanks!**

Mack tapped her pen against the spine of her planner as her eyes flitted to the clock on the wall for the twentieth time that morning. Three more minutes until Brady would be classed as late. The brunette slightly slumped in her seat as she let out a sigh, even Alyssa running through her endless list of homework assignments wasn't enough to stop her thinking about the surfer boy, who needed to learn about the concept of arriving on time. Sometimes homeroom was the only time in the school day when she could be with Brady since their schedules differed quite a bit and just for once she'd like him to show up early so she could have more than thirty seconds in his company. Two more minutes until Brady would be classed as late. Mack flipped through the pages of her planner, checked her watch once more and repeatedly tucked a strand of her chestnut hair behind her ear in anticipation; all distractions to take her mind off Brady. One more minute until Brady would be classed late. The homeroom teacher walked into the room, a stack of papers and notebooks clasped to her chest and a weary expression written across her face. Mack's heart started to sink until the teacher turned to walk to her desk, revealing a messy-haired blonde and his friend stood in the doorway, who sauntered into the classroom without a backpack or textbook in sight. Finally.

"'Sup, Mack," Brady murmured, slipping into a seat to the right of his girlfriend.

"It's about time," Mack grumbled, her eyebrows furrowing and hinting at a frown.

"What?" Brady chuckled, slouching in his seat and turning to Mack with a smile, something which he found came easily to him when she was around.

"Where have you been?" Mack asked, leaning forward in her seat and propping her head up with her fingertips on her forehead.

"What are you talking about? I always get here are this time," Brady chuckled, mindlessly playing with the bracelets that clumped together around his wrist.

"You don't think I've noticed that?" Mack challenged, raising one of her eyebrows at Brady as her lips curled into a small smile.

"I'm never late though, am I?" Brady said, crossing his arms over his chest with a smug look spreading across his face.

"You get very close though," Mack sighed, reluctantly turning her attention to the homeroom teacher, who had emerged from behind her desk to give the morning announcements to the students.

* * *

The school bell signalled the end of homeroom and the classroom turned into chaos. The sound of students' chatter filled the air almost instantly as they started to pack away and gather up their things, meaning that Mack's time with Brady was pretty much up for the day.

"I'll see you after school then?" Brady checked, sliding out of his chair and grabbing Mack's school bag for her.

"I can't, I've got a ton of homework assignments," Mack said, unwillingly admitting her lack of free time.

"Well you know where to find me if you get a spare minute," Brady smiled, leaning down to give Mack a peck on the lips.

"Apparently not in homeroom," Mack chuckled, slipping her planner into her backpack.

"Back to this again?" Brady chuckled, raising one of his eyebrows at his girlfriend.

"Yep," Mack said simply, practically jumping to her feet and hoisting the strap of her bag onto her shoulder.

"I don't see what the big deal is," Brady said, leaning against the table that he'd previously been sat at.

"Brady, sometimes homeroom is the only time that I get to see you in a day and because you always turn up at the last minute, I barely get a chance to speak to you," Mack explained, starting to make her way out of the classroom to her first class.

"Wait, Mack, I know that we haven't been able to spend as much time together at school as we did over the summer but I promise that I'll get to school early tomorrow so we can hang out," Brady said, jogging to catch up with his girlfriend, who was already stepping into the hallway.

"And how do you plan on doing that?" Mack challenged, taking her turn to raise one of her eyebrows at the blonde, who was now walking beside her.

"I'll set an alarm on my clock app," Brady replied, surprisingly excited that he'd managed to come up with a solution that quickly.

"That stupid app?" Mack chuckled, keeping one of her eyebrows quirked as she sent Brady a questioning look. "It's so pointless though."

"It's not pointless, it's just a clock," Brady shot back, struggling to keep his face from breaking out into a grin.

"Yeah, a clock that doesn't work," Mack giggled. "Brady, that app always freezes. Nine times out of ten it isn't telling the right time, it usually gets stuck five minutes after you open it."

"But you can change the backdrop, making it well worth the $1.99 that it cost me," Brady chuckled, making the couple both let out a laugh.

"Well that makes it alright then, I totally get it now. I mean, who doesn't want their digital clock to be standing in front of an aquarium?" Mack said, her voice dripping with playful sarcasm. "Or even better, a creepy forest! How about we switch it up and have the clock in outer space? No, wait, I have the perfect idea! We have it floating above a volcano."

"Ok, ok, ok. I get it," Brady chuckled, holding his hands up in defence and chuckling away at Mack's mocking comments. "It's a pretty ridiculous app."

"I'm going to buy you a real alarm clock; just so I can watch you delete that app," Mack giggled, adjusting her bag's strap on her shoulder.

"Deal," Brady agreed, holding his hand up for Mack to high-five. But when she moved her hand towards his, he swiped his out of reach. Mack's mouth dropped open in surprise and her eyebrows started to furrow as her mouth curled into the grin that she couldn't seem to keep off her face when she was looking at Brady. The blonde surfer boy kept his arm raised above his head and let more and more chuckles escape his lips as Mack tottered on her tip-toes and attempted a wobbly jump to reach his hand. A triumphant smile grew on Mack's face once she had successfully tapped Brady's hand, which soon transformed into a rather shy one when Brady wrapped his arm around her waist. The couple shared a quick kiss and a goodbye before parting ways to their respective classes. But as Mack walked, she decided that she needed to distract herself from her schoolwork, even if it was just for half an hour, and have some fun. Luckily, it didn't take long for her to come up with what she considered to be the perfect plan. Let's just say, Brady wasn't going to have the most peaceful night's sleep. Maybe he'd finally learn to get to school on time?

* * *

Mack walked into homeroom at the same time that she did every morning, taking her usual seat and getting her planner out in a clockwork fashion because it had been drummed into her muscle memory. What was very out of the ordinary though was the blonde surfer boy, who trudged through the door not even a minute later. The spring in his step was distinctly lacking and Mack had never seen him look so dishevelled. He had noticeable dark circles under his eyes and he just looked generally exhausted. Mack knew that she should feel bad seeing her boyfriend in such a state but because she knew the story behind it, she was finding the situation rather hilarious.

"Wow, I'm impressed, you actually made it here early today," Mack said, feeling a smile growing on her face as Brady lumbered towards her.

"Well, I promised, didn't I?" Brady huffed, letting out a sigh as he collapsed into his chair. As soon as he sat down he let his head fall forward, treating his crossed arms like a pillow.

"And you're looking so wonderful too," Mack joked, letting a small laugh pass her lips.

"I don't appreciate your sarcasm, babe," Brady mumbled, his eyebrows furrowing before he buried his head between his arms.

"So…did you sleep well?" Mack asked, a mischievous smile replacing her amused one.

Brady slowly raised his head and turned it to look at his girlfriend. His tired brown eyes met her bright ones. He quirked one of his eyebrows at her and then everything clicked into place. "It was you, wasn't it?" he asked, completely ignoring Mack's question.

"I just wanted you to be able to see which alarm clock you liked the most," Mack giggled. "I thought that I'd give you a few options."

"Ten is a bit more than a few," Brady grumbled, rubbing his eyes before resting his head back on his arms.

"So you counted them all?" Mack asked, yet again letting out a small chuckle as she pretended to be impressed.

"Well when I was woken up that many times to find the darn things yeah, I started counting," Brady said, starting to let his frustration slip into his speech.

What had happened was Mack had bought ten different alarm clocks and had snuck into Brady's room when he was surfing. She had hidden the clocks around the space, under his bed and in the laundry hamper being just a few locations, and had set them all to go off at different times during the night. This meant that Brady was woken up a total of ten times throughout the night with a scavenger hunt to find the clocks, each waking accompanied by endless beepings and ringings until he found and shut off the alarms. And to top it all off, the last one woke him up just in time for him to get ready and go to school on time.

"Oh come on, you don't even find this a little bit funny?" Mack asked, raising one of her eyebrows at the blonde.

"Maybe I'd find it funnier if I'd had a better night's sleep," Brady mumbled, nestling his head into his arms again.

"Well, as a reward for getting here so early, I'll let you have a little nap until homeroom starts," Mack grinned, leaning across to Brady's desk to kiss him on the cheek. She gently laced her fingers through his messy blonde hair and smiled as she watched his eyes slide shut.

"So I'm guessing that your prank idea went well," Alyssa chirped, scuttling into the classroom to see Mack hovering over the sleeping surfer boy.

"Yeah," Mack chuckled, sitting back down in her chair to tell her best friend all of the details about the prank that she'd pulled off. But what she didn't know was that Brady could pull a prank off just as easily as she could.

* * *

The sunlight seeped through the curtains that hung in Mack's bedroom, bathing the room in a soft light as the brunette stretched to turn off her alarm clock. It didn't take long for Mack to come around to her senses but when she sat up, she wondered if what she saw was really there or if she was still dreaming. She could have sworn that the top drawer of her desk had something in it. The drawers of Mack's desk were thick, clear plastic, so you can see straight into them. But in the top drawer, where she normally kept her spare stationery, she saw two floating objects. Extremely confused, Mack threw back the covers of her bed and padded towards the desk, her eyebrows knitted together and a puzzled frown appeared on her face. She bent down and came face to face with two goldfish, swimming around in the top drawer of her desk, which was now full of water, aqua blue pebbles and a plastic palm tree.

"What the…?" Mack breathed, completely dumbfounded with what she had just discovered in her room. Then she remembered that she had pranked Brady yesterday and, knowing Brady, he probably had something to do with this. Mack knew that he wasn't going to let her off the hook without getting her back for it. So to check if it was her beloved boyfriend playing a trick on her, she grabbed her phone. And the couple's conversation went a little something like this…

Mack – Are the fish your idea of a prank?

Brady – Good morning to you too, sweetie

Mack – Wow, you're up early again

Brady – I decided to put one of your alarm clocks to good use

Mack – Which one did you go with?

Brady – The blue one

Mack – Nice choice

Brady – Thanks J

Mack – You're avoiding my question. How do you always do that?

Brady – I know how to distract you

Mack – Honey, answer the question. Were the fish your idea?

Brady – Yep J

Mack – I knew it

Brady – I wasn't going to let you get away with keeping me up all night

Mack – So you decided to turn my desk into a fish tank?

Brady – Not your whole desk, just the top drawer

Mack – What am I going to do with the fish? I can't leave them there

Brady – Why not? I thought they were cute

Mack - They can't live in my desk drawer, Brady

Brady – I'll take you after school to buy a tank for them then, I'm not letting you get rid of them

Mack – Are they going to be alright until then? I don't have anything to feed them

Brady – Look in your bedside cabinet ;)

Mack slid open the drawer in her bedside table and saw a little shaker full of fish food, with a pale pink bow adorning the lid, laying on top of a book.

Mack – You really thought of everything, didn't you? Nice touch adding the bow btw

Brady – Yep and thanks. You always say that you want a pet but you think that it'd be too much work so I got you two pets that require little to no work. Apart from feeding them every day and cleaning their tank twice a month, you don't really have to provide them that much attention.

Mack – Well thank you, it was very thoughtful of you considering it's a prank. The fish are pretty cute

Brady – No problem. And 'the fish' have names

Mack – Of course they do

Brady – The white one with the black tail is called Lela and the bright orange one is called Tanner

Mack – Of course they are their names. Who else would name goldfish after 1960s movie characters that we just happen to know?

Brady – How come I can still tell that you're being sarcastic, even though it's a text?

Mack – I guess you just know me really well

Brady – I hope that you realise that we are now technically parents to two fish, babe

Mack – I hadn't up until now, but now that I'm aware of that fact I know that we will spoil them both rotten

Brady – They're going to have the most awesome tank ever, I'm going to end up spending so much at the pet shop later

Mack – We're definitely keeping that palm tree though, I like that

Brady – Whatever keeps you happy, babe 3

Mack – While I could continue talking to you all day, I have to get ready for school, which I'm sure that you can relate to me on

Brady – Yeah, it's almost the time that I normally get up

Mack – Well if we get ready now then we'll be able to see each other quicker and have a proper discussion about our fish-children's new house in person

Brady – That definitely got me out of bed

Mack – See you at school then

Brady – Not if I get there first

Mack – I highly doubt that that will ever happen, sweetie

Brady – I think that's a challenge

Mack – Ok then, whatever you say. See you soon. Love you 3

Brady – Love you too, babe 3

Let's just say that homeroom today was the homeroom that Mack had always dreamed of having with Brady. The two of them talked with every spare moment they got and, to her surprise and amusement, Brady had been sat at his desk waiting for her when she walked through the door. The couple met up after school and, like Brady promised, bought a fish tank for Lela and Tanner the goldfish. And, also like Brady promised, they ended up spending a lot of money on pointless accessories like the tiny tiki mask that Mack grew rather attached to and the plastic volcano that Brady refused to leave the store without. The couple spent the rest of the evening setting up the fish tank and adding all of the decorations in until it was complete. They gently placed the two goldfish into their new home and watched them swim off in different directions, both exploring the new environment. Mack and Brady both had their faces mere centimetres away from the glass, both so close to each other that they could feel the warmth of the other's breath bouncing back from the tank's wall. They turned their heads slightly so that they were both looking at each other.

"I think that we're going to make pretty great fish parents," Brady grinned as a tiny chuckle escaped his mouth.

"And great real parents one day," Mack smiled, leaning in and pressing her lips against Brady's, letting the warmth of his touch pump through her body. Both teens were certain that Mack's last statement would come true at some point in their life because the feeling that they got when they were in each other's company could only be described in one way: true love. "Now," Mack continued one they had broken apart. "I think it's time for me to delete that clock app," she giggled, holding her hand out for Brady to give her his phone.

"Ugh, I thought that you'd forgotten," Brady sighed, reluctantly taking his phone out of his pocket before placing it in Mack's open palm. The couple shared another laugh before retreating to the living room, going to watch the film that they had deemed ideal for the situation. No…it's not Wet Side Story (for once). It was there new, shared, second favourite: Finding Nemo. The ideal film to pay homage to their new fish-children.

 **I really hope that you enjoyed it!**

 **I know that it's more romantic than prank based but I hope that you don't mind too much, I just got carried away. XD**

 **Like I said at the start, I'm starting school again tomorrow so updates might be a little less frequent. But the next one-shot that I will be doing is going to be one of Owllover34's suggestions and I have simply decided to call it: Secret Admirer. So I hope that you're looking forward to that!**

 **I also wanted to say thank you for all of the lovely reviews that I've been getting. I like to review other people's stories because I know how much it means to the author's from my personal experience. Your kind words really do mean the world to me! I can't thank you enough!**

 **Another quick question, do you have any app recommendations for me? I've been thinking about giving my phone a bit of an app makeover so I'm looking for new ones. Let me know if there are any that you like!**

 **Thank you for reading!**

 **-cherrygorilla**


	11. Secret Admirer (Struts & Lugnut)

**Hello!**

 **I'm so sorry for the late update! I've been really busy with school starting again so I've barely had any time to write. I did try to make this one-shot a little bit longer though to make up for it! :)**

 **This one-shot was based off the wonderfully detailed request from the lovely Owllover34! I really hope that I've done your idea justice; I tried to follow everything as best as I could. :)**

 **Also, please read the author's note at the end, I've got an announcement that I'd like some feedback on if you don't mind.**

 **WARNING: This one-shot does include my OC Coral by request of Owllover34 since she came up with the idea for it. I hope it doesn't bother you too much that I decided to include her!**

 **Anyway, enough of my rambling, here's the one-shot: Secret Admirer!**

The five main girls from Wet Side Story scuttled down the sidewalk, chattering and giggling as they went. They were heading over to Struts' house to get ready together for the shindig that was to be held that evening, an activity that some of the girls were more excited than others. The surfer girls had more or less been dragged into the event, but they weren't really that bothered. They would have preferred to get ready themselves because at least that way they could be as casual with their outfit choices and makeup looks as they pleased. However, the biker girls got a little bit too excited when it came to things like that and they had to be constantly reminded by the surfer girls to not completely transform them into Barbie doll look-a-likes. But the surfer girls knew how happy it made them, so they were a little more willing to participate this time.

As Lela was telling Giggles about a new hairstyle she had been reading about that would look 'utterly groovy' on her and Struts was telling Coral about the importance of proper cuticle care, CheeChee noticed something sitting on Struts' doorstep once the five girls had turned on to the driveway.

"Uh, Struts?" she questioned, quirking one of her eyebrows as she stopped in her tracks and turned to face her fellow biker girl.

"Huh? What are those?" Struts asked, completely abandoning her conversation with Coral. Her stilettos smacked against the concrete driveway as she started to walk ahead of the others towards the door, her pace quickening with every step until she was almost at a slow jog. The four other girls crowded around Struts as she peered down at the object on her front doorstep, each girl wanting to get a good look at it. The item in question was a beautiful bouquet of large, hot pink flowers, lime green buds, pale pink roses and tiny white flowers that were practically spilling out of the clear, white-spotted plastic that cradled them.

"Oh my gosh!" Lela breathed, marvelling at the flowers as she peeked over CheeChee's shoulder.

"They're so pretty, Struts," Giggles said, gently tweaking one of the pale pink rose's petals.

"Pretty? They're gorgeous! Stunning in fact!" Lela gushed, pushing past CheeChee to get a better look at the bouquet.

"I wonder who gotcha them," CheeChee said once she had regained her balance, not forgetting to shoot Lela a dirty look when she was back on her feet again.

"I don't know for sure if they's for me yet," Struts said, a little sceptical of the gift that had been left in front of her door. "Whoever left 'em might have got the wrong house."

"Oh, look, there's a card," Coral piped up, pointing to a little, cream card that was sticking out from behind one of the big, pink blooms. "Maybe that'll give us a clue."

"That type of flower is really pretty," Giggles thought out loud, carefully cupping one of the hot pink flower heads in her hand.

"What are they called?" Lela asked as Struts removed the card and started to read it to herself.

"I think it's an Anemone," Coral answered, popping her head around Giggles' shoulder to answer the biker girl that just so happened to be going steady with her twin brother.

"I thought those things lived in the ocean," CheeChee said as her eyebrows creased together in thought.

"Oh yeah, I'm pretty sure that there's a flower called that too though," Coral said, her own eyebrows furrowing as she started to think for herself.

"How do you know so much about flowers?" Giggles asked, quite impressed with her usually ditzy best friend's knowledge.

"Well I wear enough of them," Coral chuckled, adjusting the ring of flowers that was perched on top of her cascading golden brown curls.

"The card doesn't say who they're from," Struts piped up, her eyebrows creased together as she frowned at the card.

"What's it say then?" CheeChee asked, trying to grab at the note.

"Look," Struts said, mindlessly handing the card over to the big-haired biker girl.

"'To Struts,'" CheeChee read aloud as the other three girls eagerly hung on every word. "'Hope ya like the flowers, maybe you'll find them as beautiful as I find you, from…'"

"Who's it from?!" Lela squeaked, almost bursting with excitement.

"How's I supposed to know? There's no name," CheeChee snapped, tossing the card in Lela's direction.

The biker girl swiped at the card in a state of shock. Once she finally managed to catch it, she clasped it in her hands and scanned her eyes over it at least ten times until she was finally able to believe that CheeChee's statement had been true. "You're right, there really is no name," Lela admitted, her expression showing how much of a disappointment this fact was to her. "It's just signed 'xo'."

"Huh? Who's 'xo'?" Coral asked, being as brainless as usual.

"Isn't it like hugs and kisses? That kind of 'xo'?" Giggles suggested, making all four girls look in her direction with amazed expressions.

"Woah," Coral said. "That was some seriously smart detective work, Giggles," she continued as a big smile spread across her face.

"Really?" Giggles squeaked in surprise, an equally large grin curling at her lips.

"Totally!" Coral exclaimed, both surfer girls getting more and more delirious by the second.

"I guess we both said some pretty clever things today," Giggles said, referring to Coral's knowledge of various floras and her own clue discovery.

"We must be getting smarter!" Coral cried, setting both surfer girls giggling, squealing and jumping up and down on the spot in ecstasy.

"Oh brother," CheeChee sighed, knowing that once Coral and Giggles got in a state like that it was going to take quite a bit of trying to calm them down again.

"Wait, it was signed 'hugs and kisses', so whoever left the flowers didn't want to reveal their identity," Lela started, the cogs in her brain working on overdrive and starting to slot into place. "Do you know what this means?" she asked as her lips twisted into an excited smile.

"No…" Struts said slowly, a little wary of what Lela's answer could be.

"It means that you've got a secret admirer!" Lela squealed.

"I do?" Struts asked, her eyes widening to the size of dinner plates.

"She does?" CheeChee asked, just as shocked as Struts.

"She does?" Giggles and Coral asked at the same time, crashing down from their squeals of delight at the news of Struts' flower bearer's identity.

"It's obvious, isn't it?" Lela asked, surprised that her friends hadn't picked up on it until now. "The compliment on the card, the gorgeous flowers, no name…it all means one thing."

"Someone's got a crush on ya," CheeChee said, following her comment up with one of her signature giggles as she nudged Struts' arm.

y"But…I'm with Lugnut," Struts argued, hating the very thought of having to reject someone who quite obviously really liked her.

"Oh it's no big deal, it's just a sweet gesture," Giggles chuckled, finding Struts' discomfort rather amusing.

"Sweet?! It's super romantic! This is so cute! Now I want a secret admirer!" Lela whined, playfully stamping her foot in fake disgruntlement.

"I think the least these spectacular things deserve is a vase and some water," Struts giggled, finally letting herself enjoy her gift properly. She inhaled the fresh yet sweet fragrance from the flowers before digging in the pocket of her leather jacket for her keys, when Coral ruined her blissful, giddy excitement at her surprise present.

"Oh, hey boys!" the surfer girl chirped, making the pink-stiletto wearing biker girl whip around and see five very familiar guys sheepishly skulking onto her drive.

"What are you guys doin' here?" Struts demanded, trying to hide the massive, extravagant bouquet, which was just as hard as it sounded.

"Just…passing by," Seacat said, forcing an awkward grin onto his face to mask his guilt.

"Yeah, sure," CheeChee drawled, rolling her eyes at the surfer boy's pathetic attempt at lying.

"Were you, like, spying on us?!" Giggles gasped, her eyes widening as her eyes flitted from boy to boy.

"Nah, I wouldn't really call it spying," Butchy started, one of the most relaxed of the group, but 'relaxed' was still pushing it a bit. The biker boy obviously didn't get affected by guilt that often for it enough to leave an impression.

"We wouldn't really call it spying," Rascal agreed, echoing parts of the conversation like he always did. Although his version definitely sounded a lot more like getting caught had thrown him off his usual laid-back nature that came with being a surfer.

"More like overhearing a conversation," Seacat continued, trying to act cool about the situation even though it was clear to see that he felt just as guilty as the others.

"And then stopping to listen to it," Tanner added, letting out a chuckle once he'd spoken, obviously not realising that he'd just blown the boys' cover. The other four guys noticed though and all let out sighs of defeat whilst mumbling things about 'stupid surfers' and 'not being able to keep mouths shut'. In short, they weren't very pleased.

"So what I'm hearing is that you were spying?" Coral asked, raising one of her eyebrows at the group of boys and sending them each a questioning look that pretty much bore into their minds and grabbed the answer itself.

"Well if wes is just gonna go blurtin' stuff out then yeah, we stopped to listen to ya conversation," Butchy snapped, shooting Tanner a quick glare before reverting his focus to the surfer boy's twin sister.

"How much did ya hear?" Struts asked, her eyes repeatedly darting over to her boyfriend. You could definitely say that she was nervous to see her boyfriend's reaction to her gift from her secret admirer; she had no idea how he was going to take it.

"Enough to know that you were all giggling like idiots over those 'spectacular things'," Seacat replied, motioning to the bunch of blooms that were trying to escape their plastic wrapping. Struts' eyes flitted down to the bouquet in her arms and felt her stomach drop along with her eye line. She was too nervous to look up at Lugnut in case he accused her for being involved with whoever had sent her them. Surely he wouldn't do that though, right? He trusted her in their relationship, right? He might not even question them, right? He might just think that they were a present from her parents, right?

"They're so pretty, aren't they?" Lela gushed, gazing dreamily at the huge bunch of flowers and trying to push down the jealous monster that was screaming for its own bouquet in the pit of her stomach.

"I's wouldn't really call flowers prett-" Butchy started, his eyebrows slightly furrowing as he critiqued his little sister's comment…that is until he was interrupted by Seacat, much to the biker boy's enjoyment as I'm sure that you can imagine.

"They're pretty something, that's for sure," Seacat said, curiously eyeing the rather impressive bouquet that was cradled in Struts' arms like a new born baby, wondering the question that his friend was just about to raise.

"Who got you them?" Tanner asked, flashing one of his blinding, white smiles at the bubblegum-popping biker girl. But Tanner didn't know that he'd just asked the one question that Struts had been dreading answering, even though she knew that it would have come up at some point.

"Yeah, who got you them?" Rascal echoed, yet again repeating what someone else had said. However, it seemed like Rascal had finally got control of his own voice and brain again since he decided to add on a comment of his own. "Did you do it, Lugnut?" he asked, turning to Lugnut and waiting expectantly for an answer, although he already thought that he knew what it would be.

"No, but I'd like to find out who did," Lugnut said tightly. His jaw clenched as he sent a stony stare to the bouquet of flowers, the very thought of someone hitting on his girlfriend starting an anger-fuelled fire that coursed through his veins like electricity in a circuit. "So I can pound 'em," he added through gritted teeth, his hands already balled into tight fists.

"Woah," Coral said, taking a step back to give the biker boy a little more time to cool off. "Relax, dude."

"I's not gonna relax, how'd ya expect me to relax at a time like this?" Lugnut snapped, scowling at the surfer girl before turning his attention back to running through all the different ways that he could 'pound' the guy that had left the flowers…once he found out who did it that is.

"Well I think it's about time, Lugnut needs to be stickin' up for his girl," CheeChee piped up, crossing her arms over her chest and shifting her weight to one side.

"Thanks, CheeChee," Struts smiled, glad that someone was finally thinking about her during all of this.

"Not that ya need stickin' up for but ya get what I mean, right?" CheeChee rambled, getting slightly off the topic of main concern.

"Right," Struts agreed, once again shooting the tall-haired biker girl a big grin.

"No, not really," Coral said, looking rather lost after trying to follow CheeChee's train of thought.

"Good," CheeChee finished with a satisfied smile, completely ignoring Coral's answer to avoid having to explain it again.

"Well I think it's adorable that Struts has a secret admirer," Giggles chirped, the fringe on her bikini swaying as she bounced on the non-existent heels of her flat, white boots.

"Secret admirer?" Butchy asked, quirking one of his eyebrows as his eyes moved from Struts, to the bouquet and finally to Lugnut, checking to see how he was taking this news. In short, he wasn't taking it very well.

"Basically, someone likes Struts but is too nervous to reveal who they are," Giggles explained.

"Well it was bound to happen to one of us at some point, right?" Lela asked, glancing at the four other girls in turn and silently raging that it hadn't been her to have a secret admirer. It's not that Lela was jealous of people having a crush on Struts, it was just the fact that Lela was such a hopeless romantic that she'd always dreamed of something like this happening to her. Yet when it happens to Struts, she doesn't even make that big of a deal about it. That just didn't seem fair in Lela's eyes.

"Yeah, it's about time," Struts chuckled, joking along with Lela's comment until Lugnut snatched the bouquet out of her grasp.

"About time I find this guy and tell him to knock it off," Lugnut growled, grabbing the bouquet and storming off down the drive. Struts' mouth fell open as the flowers were ripped from her grasp, a lightning bolt of shocked disbelief striking her and taking her breath away for a few seconds. But she soon started inhaling again when she got her bearings back and saw Lugnut angrily dumping the bouquet in the hedge at the bottom of her driveway. The biker boy shoved the flowers between the collection of small twigs and leaves that made up the hedge before storming off down the road in search of this 'secret admirer'. Lugnut had set off like he knew exactly who and where the guy who had left the flowers was; when in reality he didn't have the faintest idea what he was going to do about finding them. All he knew was that it wasn't right and he needed to make it right.

"Aw, he's so cute when he's jealous," Struts sighed, gazing dreamily at her brave knight-in-shining-armour who was going off to protect her from whoever was trying to flirt with her. At least that's what she was telling herself. Because in reality, she didn't need 'protecting' from anything, it was just a nice gesture from someone. They obviously weren't being serious when they were saying how much they liked her, right? She was in a relationship with Lugnut and she certainly didn't see anything changing about that any time soon. So what was Lugnut so worried about?

"Uh," Butchy trailed off, backing down the drive to follow his friend. "We's got ya back, Lugnut!" he called, breaking into a run once he'd reached the pavement that led onto the main road. "Let us know when ya find the guy!" his shouts echoed down the street as he chased after his crew member. It took a few seconds, but the surfer boys soon became aware of the fact that they weren't really welcome anymore (not that they had been in the first place) and decided to head back to the beach, some a little more promptly than others. And by that I mean that it took several seconds for Tanner to stop grinning goofily at Lela and realise that Seacat and Rascal were already waiting for him at the base of the driveway.

Once she'd made sure that the boys were long gone, Struts snuck out of her front door to retrieve the slightly mangled bouquet. The flowers were missing a few petals here and there but it had surprisingly stayed pretty much intact, so Struts carried them inside and proudly placed them in a red, glass vase before running back upstairs to get ready for the shindig. But the whole time that she was curling her hair and picking out a dress, she couldn't shake the question that was constantly bouncing around her brain. Who had left her the flowers?

* * *

The news of Struts' secret admirer had managed to spread like wildfire, reaching the ears of pretty much every surfer and biker that inhabited Big Momma's every night. No one really knows who had spread the news out of the ten people that were aware of the gift because every single one denied it, so I'll let you have your own suspicions. There was still the overall mystery of who had sent the flowers in the first place and Lugnut, who was no closer to discovering any clues, was tearing his hair out over the problem. But the mystery was about to get solved, a lot quicker than anyone thought possible. It all became very clear after over-hearing a conversation between some biker boys on the porch of Big Momma's. The three words that Lugnut had been desperate to hear since the incident had happened three days ago. 'It was me.'

As Lugnut pushed through the double doors of the beach hangout spot and began to trudge down the stairs, off to take another long ride on his bike to wrack his brain for more ideas, he heard voices to his right. He craned his head and saw no one stood there. So he kept walking, thinking that he had imagined the voices. They were just figments of his imagination because that's what he wanted to hear. No one was there. No one was saying that. No one was helping him get closer to finding the culprit. But as he lumbered towards the Big Momma's car park, which was filled with more bikes than cars unlike the name would suggest, he heard them again. This time, however, he spotted a cluster of four biker boys. Four biker boys who he happened to be pretty close friends with: Sidecar, Muffler, Rocket and Jax. Sidecar was slumped against the wall with his arm above his head, propping himself up; Muffler was slouched against the railing that ran around the porch area with his legs lazily crossed in front of him; Rocket had a strong stance with his legs slightly apart and his arms crossed and Jax had his back to the wall, his head casually cocked to the side.

"Whaddya think 'bout this whole 'secret admirer' junk with Struts and Lugnut then?" Muffler piped up, idly crossing his arms and scanning the three biker boys stood before him.

"It's just a bunch of drama," Sidecar huffed, totally uninterested in the new conversation topic.

"Who d'ya think it is though?" Muffler asked, obviously more invested in the piece of gossip than his friend.

"Why d'ya care?" Sidecar shot back, rolling his eyes.

"Yeah, isn't that like girl stuff?" Rocket asked as he quirked one of his eyebrows questioningly at Muffler for bringing up something like that.

"Jeez, excuse me for tryin' to talk 'bout somethin' different for once," Muffler sighed, holding his hands up in defence so that his friends didn't fire any more abuse at him.

"It's not really different though, is it?" Rocket said, shooting an accusing glance in Jax's direction.

"Yeah, you's oddly quiet," Sidecar piped up, turning to look at Jax as well.

"Normally you're jumpin' at the chance to talk 'bout your favourite girl," Rocket teased, smirking at the biker boy, who hadn't said a word yet. "Why haven't ya said anythin' yet?"

"What's the point in askin' questions 'bout somethin' I already knows 'bout?" Jax asked, casually shrugging his shoulders and causing his three friends to give him puzzled looks.

"You already know 'bout the secret admirer thing?" Sidecar asked, surprised to say the least.

"Couse he does, idiot," Rocket scoffed, fully prepared to tease his friend as much as possible. "He's gotta know who his competition is. Can't have anyone else gettin' between him and his woman, can he?" The three biker boys all snickered at that, knowing better than anyone that Jax had a massive crush on Lugnut's girlfriend. But even though they had access to this information, none of them were expecting the confession that came next.

"I'm my own competition?" Jax asked, a cryptic smirk curling his lips and once more drawing the other three biker boys' attention to him. However, he didn't know yet that he was also drawing a fourth biker boy's attention as well.

"Wait, it was you?" Rocket asked, incredibly shocked at what Jax had just said.

"You sent those flowers to Struts?" Sidecar asked, equally as shocked as Rocket.

"You're the secret admirer?" Muffler finished, matching his two acquaintances' expressions.

"Well it took ya long enough to figure out," Jax smirked, a hint of an amused chuckle escaping his lips. But the smirk didn't stay there for long because the fifth biker boy, who could barely believe the conversation he had just over-heard between his friends, was already racing back to the steps that led up to the porch. Once he rounded the corner he stopped dead in his tracks and just stared at Jax, his whole body trembling with rage.

"And the culprit is revealed," Lugnut snarled, taking in shaky breaths as his brain tried to process the information it had just been given. How could one of his close friends betray him like that? How could he go behind his back and hit on his girlfriend so easily, as if he didn't have a care in the world? How could he think that he could get away with something like that?

"Uh…" Jax stuttered, the colour draining from his face as he spotted the worst person that could have shown up. Lugnut strode towards him, his face like thunder as he closed in on his target.

"You think you stand a chance with Struts?" Lugnut asked, gripping the collar of the boy's leather jacket.

"I…" Jax stammered, his mind going completely blank, paralysed with fear.

"You think you have a chance with her over me?" Lugnut pressed, forcefully bringing Jax closer to his face.

"Uh..." Jax stuttered again.

"You think you can take on me?" Lugnut urged, slamming Jax's back into the outer wall of Big Momma's, knocking the air out of the squirming biker boy.

"Um," Jax wheezed, trying to catch his breath again. "I…I guess-"

"Alright, have it your way. You," Lugnut growled, jabbing his forefinger into the centre of Jax's chest. "Me," he continued, turning his finger to point to his own chest. "Three o'clock, Big Momma's," he finished, curling his hand into a fist before cracking his knuckles and shooting Jax one last glare. Lugnut swiftly turned on his heels then stormed back towards the front doors of Big Momma's and kicked them open, not even bothering to acknowledge the existence of the handle.

"Wha…wha-what just happened?" Jax faltered, gulping breaths of air as he fixed his leather jacket and prised himself away from the wall.

"Ya just got caught, J," Muffler said, staring open mouthed at the biker boy opposite him even though he could hardly believe what he'd just witnessed himself.

"But…what did that knuckle-thing mean?" Jax continued in a complete state of panic as he searched his friends' faces for answers.

"He challenged ya to a fight, Jax," Rocket explained, watching as the brunette boy's face turned even whiter, if that was possible. It looked like he'd seen a ghost.

Jax, despite being part of a biker crew, was one of the worst people when it came to confrontations of any kind. He hated violence and was terrified of blood, so he definitely wasn't your typical rough and tough biker boy. And the news that he was going to have to take on one of the main bikers, who was dating his crush and was a key part in most of the fights that the Rodents got into when they were out of town, struck him down with fear…literally. Jax felt his legs turn to jelly and they gave way beneath him, forcing Sidecar to awkwardly jump to attention and catch him so that he didn't smack his head on the decking. It was pretty clear to see that Jax wasn't exactly thrilled about the fight.

But there was someone else who was terrified about the announcement of the confrontation between the two biker boys that they had just overheard. Someone who was clutching her surfboard so tightly that her knuckles were turning white. The surfer girl's white boots sunk into the soft grains of sand beneath her feet as she whipped her head to watch Lugnut crash through the doors of Big Momma's in alarm. Her boots didn't stay sunken into the sand for long though because it was a matter of seconds before her legs started to move independently. Kicking up clouds of sand grains behind her as she ran; she dropped her surfboard to the ground and bolted down to the water, the fringe of her bikini wildly swaying from side to side as she scanned the beach for any sign of a pair of pink stilettos. But Giggles couldn't see Struts anywhere, so she twirled around and re-traced her steps until she reached the road that led up to the street of houses that inhabited most of the beach residents, where she broke into a run once more.

The surfer girl skidded to a halt at the base of Struts' driveway before scurrying up to the front door and desperately hammering away at it. She only stopped pounding at the wood when Struts swung it open, her eyebrows were slightly creased together but her eyes were wide from surprise.

"What's goin' on Giggles?" Struts asked as CheeChee and Lela joined her in the doorway.

"Lugnut challenged Jax to a fight!" Giggles babbled, her eyes frantically darting between the three biker girls.

"What? Why?" Lela asked, her eyebrows furrowing like Struts'.

"He found out that Jax sent the flowers," Giggles explained, agitatedly bouncing on the spot.

"Jax sent the flowers?!" Struts cried, her eyes practically popping out of her head. She couldn't believe what she'd just heard. Jax, the sweet, usually nervous biker boy that pretended to be strong and have a big ego to fit in was her secret admirer? How did that make any sense at all? How could he possibly take on Lugnut in a fight? Why did Lugnut challenge him to a fight in the first place? Did he really think that he was going to threaten what they had together? Those were just a handful of the thousands of thoughts that were flying around Struts' brain, making it almost impossible to even attempt to think straight.

"Do you know when the fight is?" Lela asked, bringing Struts crashing back to reality.

"Three o'clock," Giggles said, nervously playing with the end of a strand of her sun-bleached blonde hair.

"What time is it now?" Struts choked, having to force the words out of her mouth since her mind was so preoccupied with questions and worries over the imminent brawl.

"Ten to three," Lela said slowly, craning her head to glance at the clock hanging on the wall beside her in the hallway. The four girls all stared at each other, completely frozen with fear.

"We's gots to go break this up before somebody gets hurt! Somebody bein' Jax!" CheeChee exclaimed as Struts, Lela and Giggles wildly nodded their heads in agreement. Without another word, the four girls all raced back towards Big Momma's, only stopping once for Struts to slip off her stilettos.

* * *

The sight that Struts, Giggles, Lela and CheeChee were met with when they burst through the doors of Big Momma's was pretty self-explanatory, but that didn't make it any less concerning. The chairs and tables have been moved away from the centre of the restaurant to create a circular space in the middle, like when they turned it into a dance floor for their shindigs. But this was far from any shindig. Tanner, Seacat, Rascal and Coral were all awkwardly stood off to the side, looking very jittery and nervous as the rest of the surfers huddled behind them, all looking very out of place in the scenario. The majority of the Rodents were stood behind Butchy, who was scowling at the considerably smaller group of bikers cowering opposite him. They obviously hadn't picked the right side to be supporting in his eyes. What drew your attention the most though were the two figures at the centre of it all; one was doubled over and clutching his stomach whilst the other one had his hands balled into fists at his sides, shooting daggers at the other boy. It didn't take a genius to work out which one of them was winning. But just as Lugnut was raising his fist to throw another punch, even though Jax had barely straightened up again, someone pushed through the crowds of people and ran in between the two boys.

"Stop this right now!" Struts shouted, glowering at both boys, completely disgusted with their animal-like behaviour. Struts had never seen Lugnut drop his act so quickly before, it was like a raindrop made from lead. He jumped back from his girlfriend for fear that he couldn't stop his arm in time, the thought of bringing any harm to her too horrific to even begin to process, and stumbled until he regained his balance. Jax, however, was extremely glad about the delay since it gave him enough time to get his breath back, which had been so kindly knocked out of him by Lugnut. "What on earth is goin' on here?!" Struts cried, turning her attention from person to person until someone gave her an answer.

"They're fighting," Tanner piped up from the corner of the room, flushing bright red when the entire restaurant's attention was turned to him.

"Over you," Seacat added, glancing over at Struts, who had her hands placed firmly on her hips, still clutching onto her pink high heels that she had taken off when she was running here.

"They're fighting over you," Rascal repeated, echoing what both of the surfer boys had said before him.

"Lugnut found out that Jax was the one who sent you the flowers," Coral finished, anxiously looking at Struts to see how she was going to react.

"Yeah, I know," Struts sighed, sending a fleeting glance to her secret admirer before averting her gaze.

"How?" Butchy asked, his eyebrows knitting together as he stared at the biker girl.

"Giggles told me, she overheard you guys talkin'," Struts explained as she frowned at the five biker boys she had referenced. Giggles' cheeks flushed crimson upon her name being mentioned and everyone turning to look at her.

"So…" Jax started, using a chair to push himself up until he was standing. "What does this mean then?" Jax asked, holding his breath as he gazed at the biker girl he'd fallen so hard for, despite her being caught by another guy.

"Jax," Struts began, stepping towards the biker boy she now knew for sure was seriously crushing on her just from the look on his face. He looked like a dejected puppy that had been denied a walk because he knew what was coming, even if he didn't want to believe it. "You's a really sweet guy and the bouquet is gorgeous, but I'm with Lugnut. And I don't see that changing any time soon. You deserve a better girl than me, one who can actually fall in love with ya without having to break someone else's heart in the process. You's is a great guy, Jax, go and find yourself a great girl," she finished, resting a hand on the boy's shoulder before giving it a reassuring squeeze.

"Yeah, I had a feeling you was gonna say somethin' like that," Jax sighed, slipping his hands into his pockets and letting his eye line drop to the floor once he spotted Lugnut shooting him a smug grin from behind his girlfriend's back.

"Nice one, babe," Lugnut smirked, as he watched Jax's face fall. At least they'd both taught him a lesson now. Lugnut thought that Struts was going to be relieved that he'd stepped in to put a stop Jax from flirting with her, but he got a very different response from the biker girl.

"Don't you 'babe' me," she snapped, twirling around to face her boyfriend with a stormy expression. Her black and white skirt billowed out around her thighs from the sudden movement.

"Huh?" Lugnut murmured, quirking one of his eyebrows as a reflex of his surprise.

"Why'd ya think that it's ok to go round beatin' people up for doin' nice things?" Struts asked, crossing her arms over her chest and tapping her foot against the wooden floorboards in anticipation of an answer.

"Uh, it wasn't a nice thing, he was hittin' on ya," Lugnut shot back, starting to frown at his girlfriend's odd behaviour. Why wasn't she blindly agreeing with him and showering him with praise for being so brave like he'd expected her to?

"I know that," Struts hissed. "But a simple 'back off, she's not interested' would've been fine."

"Well I's sorry for bein' protective," Lugnut quipped, his voice dripping with sarcasm.

"More like jealous," Struts muttered, scowling at her boyfriend's childish ways.

"I's not jealous, I just don't wanna risk losin' ya, Struts," Lugnut admitted, his tone was harsh but his face showed just how hurt he was. Ever since he'd discovered the flowers waiting for Struts he'd been so paranoid that she'd find out who had sent them and would turn her affection towards them. He couldn't even think of what his life would be like if Struts broke up with him, she was everything to him.

Struts stopped dead, the breath caught in her throat and she just stared at the biker boy in front of her.

"Do ya have any idea how much this has been tearin' me apart over the past few days?" Lugnut asked, trying to make eye contact with Struts. But she just let her gaze fall to the ground.

"No," she said meekly after a short pause.

Everyone in Big Momma's was silent. You could have head a pin drop. And everyone's attention was drawn to the couple at the centre of it all.

"I couldn't cope, Struts," Lugnut confessed. "I kept thinkin' that you'd go off with the guy when ya found him."

"And dump you?" Struts asked, raising one of her eyebrows.

"Well, yeah, that's what I's was gettin' at," Lugnut mumbled, avoiding eye contact with the biker girl in front of him now that he'd admitted everything.

"Why on earth would ya think somethin' like that?" Struts asked, stepping closer to her boyfriend. "Don't ya trust me?" Although Struts was waiting for an answer, Lugnut didn't give her one. Instead, he just scuffed his sneaker against the floorboards. "Lugnut," she said, moving her high heels into one hand so that she could use her other one to take hold of his leather-gloved hands. "You're the only guy for me, please get that into your head," she chuckled, bringing his gaze back to her. "I's not going anywhere, ok?" she finished, locking eyes with the secretly insecure biker boy.

Lugnut gave Struts a discreet nod and allowed a smile to form on his face. He slowly moved his hands out of Struts' grip, only to slide his arms around her waist and bring her even closer to him. Struts wrapped her arms around the base of Lugnut's neck, making sure to keep her stilettos (which she was still holding on to) as far away from him as possible to avoid spiking him in the back of the head. Their lips locked together and they both got completely lost in the kiss, the only two people that mattered to them were each other…not the room full of people that were still awkwardly watching the couple. It didn't look like the couple were breaking apart any time soon either, so Seacat decided to step in.

"Uh, guys? You do realise that we're all still here right?" the surfer boy asked, voicing everyone's thoughts at once. Luckily, Struts and Lugnut stopped for breath long enough to catch Seacat's question. They both let out a rather sheepish laugh and flushed cherry red from embarrassment. "Do you want to take it outside?" he continued, still feeling extremely awkward for having to bring it up.

"Or do you want to get a room?" Coral asked, making a few of the surfers and bikers throughout the restaurant (more specifically, the immature ones) let out snorts of laughter, much to her amusement.

Struts and Lugnut weren't bothered about their friends making fun of them though; they just laced their fingers together and strolled out of the doorway without a care in the world. Struts rested her head against the soft leather of her boyfriend's jacket as the couple walked hand in hand down the shore, both sharing dreamy smiles and stealing kisses as they went. Everyone else presumed that they spent the rest of the day together because no one saw them again until the next morning when neither of them could wipe the giddy smiles off their faces. It had definitely been a date night to remember.

 **I really hope that you enjoyed it!**

 **Let me know in a review who you think it was that spread the gossip about Struts' secret admirer! There's no right or wrong answer because I haven't thought about it myself, I'd just like to hear your ideas on it! XD**

 **The next one-shot that I will be writing is a suggestion by Guest that is going to be called: Stuffy Nose. So I hope that you're looking forward to that!**

 **Like always, I want to say thank you for the lovely reviews that I got last chapter! You're so sweet and I love hearing what you think of each one-shot. You mean the world to me! I can't thank you enough!**

 **So my announcement is that since Halloween is coming up, I am going to write a week's worth of Halloween-inspired one-shots! That means that I will be posting a different Halloween themed one-shot every day in the week of the 25** **th** **to the 31** **st** **of October. I want your help though because I need prompts for the one-shots! I have a few songs that I'm going to work into stories but I need other ideas and song suggestions too. I'd be so grateful if you could help me with some ideas whether it's a full plot line or a Halloween-y song that you'd like me to include or even just a costume idea. And you never know, I might just put your idea into one of the stories!**

 **That's all for now! Thank you so much for reading!**

 **-cherrygorilla**


	12. Stuffy Nose (Lela & Butchy)

**Hello!**

 **How have you been?**

 **I'm feeling pretty great today because I finally got the chance to watch the new Disney Channel film Descendants on Friday and I absolutely loved it, I can't stop listening to all the songs and I think that the plot was an incredible concept! Have you seen the film? Let me know what you thought of it if you have and if you haven't seen it then let me know if you want to watch it or not! Let's talk! :)**

 **I'm super sorry that I haven't posted anything in over a week, I've been really bogged down with homework and I was kind of struggling when I was writing this. I hope that it's not too terrible, I tried my best but I didn't really know what to write.**

 **I want to thank Guest as well for the suggestion for this one-shot, I really hope that I did your idea justice!**

 **Also, I have a few questions about my Halloween one-shots that I'd like to get some feedback on at the author's note at the end so please make sure that you read that, I'd really appreciate your help!**

 **Anyway, enough about all of that, here's the one-shot: Stuffy Nose!**

It starts with a sneeze, which you usually ignore. Then it progresses to a stuffy nose that soon becomes bored and starts to run, but you choose to ignore that too. Then comes the sore throat that nags at you to fix it, but you ignore that as well, or you try to ignore it until eventually it starts screaming and all you want to do is rip out your tonsils. Then come the head aches that swiftly turn into whole body aches, and now you're not so fond of the idea of ignoring your body's cries for help anymore. Suddenly it gets to the point when you can no longer ignore it and you spend hours puking as a punishment. And this is exactly how Lela was feeling in the early hours of Thursday morning as she endured her penalty for brushing off her symptoms and pretending like she didn't have the flu. But don't worry; you didn't think that she was going to suffer alone, did you?

* * *

Butchy stumbled through his bedroom door at around 6:30am to go to the bathroom, still half asleep. He groggily pushed open the door, catching it on something as he did so. Rather puzzled, and slightly more awake, the biker boy gave the door a harder shove and almost stumbled over that something as he lazily strode inside. The something, which he quickly discovered was a some _one_ , that got hit with the door jolted awake in surprise, shooting the boy a panicked look before their eyes slid shut again and their head slumped back to rest on the rim of the toilet seat.

"Lela? What the heck is yous doin'?" Butchy hissed, not completely sure if he was dreaming all of this or if it was real.

"Sleeping…and…puking," Lela mumbled, already drifting back off to sleep again. Lela was sat…well, slouched on the floor, leaning against the toilet. She looked deathly pale and had prominent dark circles under her eyes. Her hair hung limply, messily pushed away from her face and the floor around her was littered with screwed up pieces of toilet roll that had acted as tissues.

"Pukin'?! You still not feelin' any betters than yesterday?" Butchy asked, squatting down beside his sister and sending her a concerned look.

"No…I feel…worse," Lela said, weakly shaking her head.

"Why're ya in here at this time?" Butchy asked, still staring at his little sister in disbelief.

"I didn't want to throw up in my room…so I came in here," Lela murmured, her voice trailing off every time that she finished speaking, like she was drifting off to sleep again, only to be woken again by another question from her brother.

"How long ago was that?" Butchy asked, raising one of his eyebrows and breaking the threads of concern that had previously knitted them together.

"Two thirty…I think," Lela sighed, not even bothering to prise her eyes open this time.

"Two thirty?! You's been in here for four hours?!" Butchy whisper-shrieked, hardly processing the information that his sister had just told him. Was she actually insane?

It's six thirty already?" Lela asked meekly, shocking herself with how long she'd managed to doze on her bathroom floor.

"Jeez, sis, what on earth was ya thinkin'?" Butchy huffed, sleepily rubbing his eyes before standing up.

Lela mumbled something in audible before jumping to attention and clumsily manoeuvring to lean over the toilet bowl. Butchy let out a sigh before silently stepping over to his little sister. He scooped up her hair and held it away from her face as she dry-retched into the toilet. The older brother rubbed his little sister's back until she leaned back, a sign that she was done for now. Butchy grabbed a wad of toilet paper and handed it to Lela so that she could clean herself up, but the biker girl denied it. There was nothing to clean up after all. She'd been vomiting on and off for four hours straight, there was nothing left to come up. Butchy let out another sigh, this time more out of pity than irritation because the face that Lela sent him made him feel so awfully helpless. Lela's icy blue eyes were wide with guilt and her whole body was trembling with exhaustion.

"Come on," Butchy said quietly, bending down and sliding his arms underneath Lela's body. "You need some sleep," he said, hoisting her up and carrying her out of the bathroom.

"Where are we going?" Lela murmured, half burying her face in her older brother's t-shirt.

"To your room," Butchy replied simply, gently kicking open Lela's bedroom door. He walked over to his sister's bed and laid her down, trying his best not to jolt her awake too much. As soon as Lela's head hit the pillow she was out like a light. Her soft, heavy breaths telling her brother that she was already in a deep sleep…and that her nose was still completely blocked like it had been for the past few days.

Once Butchy had relieved himself and was on his way back to his own room, a thought popped into his head. A thought that required him properly getting up a little bit earlier than intended, which he wasn't really excited for. And anything that Butchy came up with that involved getting up early was a pretty big deal for him. So he dived under his duvet and drifted back off to sleep, eagerly wringing out the mere two more hours of sleep that he would have to survive off for the rest of the day.

* * *

Lela's eyelids felt like they were being weighed down with cinder blocks, which made it even more of a struggle to force them open. A bang from the front door being pushed open downstairs had woken her up, even though she wasn't in any mood to be awake her. However, her body obviously thought that the thunderous thump was a wakeup call. Her eyelids slid shut again, the effort to keep them open becoming too much, and she fell into a light doze. That is, until her older brother kicked the door open with his foot and strolled into the room.

"Butchy?" Lela mumbled drowsily, only opening her eyes for a second before letting them fall closed again.

"Mornin', sis," Butchy said, surprisingly cheerily considering that it was still the morning. A soft clinking thud signalled that he'd placed something on top of Lela's dresser, but once again Lela was too tired to open her eyes to see what it was. "You feelin' any better?" he continued, giving away the fact that he was walking towards his sister's bed by the way that his voice seemed to get louder and louder. Or maybe that was just the ringing in Lela's ears from the pounding headache she was suffering with partially subsiding.

"Not really," Lela replied, her sinuses blocked to the point where her speech was starting to become almost inaudible.

"All the same symptoms from yesterday?" Butchy checked, sitting down on the edge of his little sister's bed.

"Yep," Lela yawned, instantly regretting her decision. A small moan resonated from her mouth as she closed it again, her throat burning from straining to yawn and her head pounding more than ever as she buried it into her pillow.

"Still got a fever?" Butchy asked, carefully sliding a thermometer into the corner of Lela's mouth.

Lela mumbled something that Butchy couldn't decipher into her pillow and although Butchy couldn't tell what she was saying, he knew her well enough to be able to tell that it wasn't something good. After a few seconds Butchy removed the thermometer from his sister's mouth and saw that it had sky-rocketed, which obviously wasn't a good sign.

"Well that's definitely a yes," he sighed, wincing as Lela let out another hacking cough that sounded like she was trying to choke on her own lungs.

"Was that you going out of the house earlier?" Lela asked quietly, nuzzling her head into her pillow.

"Yeah, I went to the store to grab a few things," Butchy replied, walking over to the pile of disease-fighting supplies that he'd placed on top of Lela's dresser.

"What things?" Lela asked, opening one of her eyes and curiously peeking over at her older brother to see what he was doing.

"Medicine, for starters," Butchy said simply, turning on his heels before sauntering back over to the pink and gold bed in the centre of the room with a bottle of

"No," Lela whined, sounding more like a toddler who had been denied a nap rather than a teenage girl.

"Well how do yous expect to get any better if ya don't take ya medicine, sis?" Butchy questioned, cracking open the lid of the bottle of red liquid.

"I don't know," Lela mewled, already defeated after the weak excuse of an argument.

Butchy poured the viscous, blood red liquid onto a tablespoon before struggling through the five minute war between the two siblings over whether the medicine was getting consumed or not. Eventually the elder brother came out the victor and Lela had to stomach the vile, sticky liquid.

Lela's stuffy nose wrinkled in disgruntlement as the medicine slid down her throat, momentarily easing the scratchy burning that stung her windpipe. "Did you get anything for my throat?" Lela croaked, her voice hoarse and strained because of her inflamed tonsils.

"Does a bike have wheels?" Butchy said sarcastically, raising one of his eyebrows at his little sister before strolling towards the door.

"Where are you going?" Lela choked, letting out another cough just as she opened her mouth to speak.

"I'm gonna go make ya a drink," Butchy called as he stepped out onto the landing.

"A drink? Why?" Lela asked, trying to speak up so that her brother could hear her, even though she was pretty much on the verge of losing her voice all together.

"'Cause it'll help with ya throat, sis," Butchy shouted back, already descending the stairs before swinging around the banister into the kitchen.

* * *

When Butchy returned, he found Lela snuggled under her duvet to the point where she might as well just be part of it but still shivering like a Chihuahua.

"Sis?" Butchy called quietly, hoping not to wake his sister up if she was in fact sleeping.

"Butchy?" Lela mumbled sleepily, lifting her head slightly up her pillow but managing to keep her blanket cocoon intact as she did so.

"Yous feelin' up for some breakfast?" Butchy asked, placing down a tray on Lela's dresser next to the pile of various medicines and remedies.

"It's 11:30am, Butchy, it's too late to call it breakfast," Lela complained, her illness obviously making her feel a little bit crabby.

"Fine, do ya want some food?" Butchy chuckled, finding his sister's whining rather amusing rather than annoying.

"I don't know," Lela mewled, burying her head into her pillow in frustration. Her head ache hadn't eased up, her throat felt like it was being sliced with a knife, she couldn't breathe properly because her sinuses were so blocked and every time she coughed it felt like her throat was being torn apart, so at this point she felt rather defeated and burrowing her head in her pillow seemed like the best way to escape her problems right now.

"Sis, come on, ya gotta eat somethin'," Butchy sighed, picking up the bowl that he had brought upstairs on the tray. "Ya haven't got any food in ya, yous threw it all up last night."

"I don't want to though," Lela whimpered, trying to hide under her blanket by bringing it up to just below her eyes.

"Jeez, Lela, I didn't realise that we were elementary school kids again," Butchy said sarcastically, starting to get irritated with Lela's lack of cooperation. He could have been out with the rest of the Rodents or hanging at Big Momma's with them, but instead he'd chosen to stay at home and look after his ill little sister, only for her to throw it back in his face and be difficult when he was trying to help her.

"Butchy," Lela said, her tone showing how unimpressed she was with her brother's sarcasm. She didn't approve of him using it in general but it just got on her nerves even more because she was ill. "I'm not hungry, ok?"

"No, sis, it's not," Butchy huffed, growing more and more fed up by the second. "I's just tryin' to help ya here. Yous know I's stink at cookin', but the one time that I actually make an effort ya start actin' up. It's gonna make ya feel better, trust me," he said, carrying the bowl over to his little sister's bed, hovering over her with a challenging look.

"Ok, fine," Lela sighed, defeated and too weak to argue back further. So she sat up further, prompting Butchy to hand her the bowl with a grateful smile and as soon as the pottery came into contact with her skin, the warmth flooded through her body, making her feel ten times better already. Her acid-wash denim blue eyes fell on the contents of the bowl and she couldn't help but share her brother's smile. Looking back up at her was a bowl of her mother's chicken soup; renowned for being the greatest home-remedy for any type of sickness.

"And this'll help ya throat when yous is done with that," Butchy said, setting down a mug of clear, slightly amber-toned liquid on Lela's bedside table.

"What is it?" Lela asked, already shovelling a spoonful of the steaming hot soup into her mouth.

"Hot honey and lemon," Butchy replied simply before turning back to the doorway.

"Hot what?" Lela mumbled, her mouth stuffed with vegetable chunks.

"Honey and lemon," Butchy enunciated, walking out of his sister's room and across to his.

"Why?" Lela called, straining her voice so that her brother could hear her. But doing this just made her cough even more.

"'Cause the lady at the store said it would help ya throat," Butchy called back, already strolling back across the landing to Lela's bedroom.

"You're taking advice from random people at the store now?" Lela questioned, raising an eyebrow at her older brother as he re-entered the room.

"Just try it, ok?" Butchy said, fluffing the pillow that he had brought from his room.

"Ok," Lela sighed, putting the bowl of soup down in exchange for the mug of golden-tinged water. "Hmmm," Lela smiled, thankful for the warm liquid that soothed her throat. "That's actually pretty good."

"Just sit up a bit, sis," Butchy said, walking around to the side of her bed with the cushion still firmly in his grasp. Lela obeyed and Butchy stuffed the extra pillow behind her head. "Not only did the lady at the store recommend a drink, she also said to prop yourself up on a pillow," Butchy continued, making sure that his sister was comfortable before stepping back.

"So when's your date with this lady at the store then?" Lela teased before taking another sip of her drink.

"Haha, very funny," Butchy said, his voice dripping with sarcasm. "You're obviously feeling better already."

"I wish," Lela grumbled, sniffing in an attempt to clear her sinuses. Butchy didn't even need to say anything, he just handed his sister the entire box of tissues that he'd brought upstairs. One was definitely not going to last more than two minutes so she might as well just have all of them. "Thanks," Lela said, following her congested comment up with a sneeze, almost making her spill the contents of her mug all over herself.

"Yous gonna be alright if I leave ya for a bit?" Butchy asked, secretly feeling extremely guilty for even suggesting abandoning his sick little sister. "I was just gonna go work on my bike in the garage," he explained, feeling like he needed to give an explanation before he left.

"Yeah, sure," Lela smiled, knowing that her brother had already given up his day to take care of her. The least she could do was let him go downstairs. Plus, she knew that once she'd finished her food she could take a little nap, which she definitely felt like she needed since she'd spent most of the night throwing up in the bathroom instead of sleeping.

"Thanks, I'll keep comin' in to check on ya," Butchy said, already making his way towards the door.

"Butchy, I'll be fine," Lela said, a hint of a chuckle managing to escape her lips past the rim of the mug that she was cradling beneath her chin. "It's not like I'm going anywhere," Lela giggled, forcing a tiny laugh out of her brother as well. Even though her whole body ached, her head pounded with every new thought, she could barely breathe through her nose and she couldn't speak without her throat feeling like it was being clawed at with fake nails, she still managed to stay the cheerful biker girl that everyone knew and loved.

* * *

Around fifteen minutes later, Lela had slowly consumed the rest of the soup and hot drink and was now settling down for a midday nap. But just as she snuggled under her covers, she heard thudding footsteps on the stairs.

"Sis, I was just talkin' to Giggles and she said that havin' a humidifier helps to un-stuff ya nose," Butchy said as he strolled into his sister's room, completely oblivious to the fact that Lela was trying to sleep.

"Having a what?" Lela mumbled, drowsily trying to prop herself up on her stack of pillows again.

"A humidifier, but I don't think we gots one of those so she said a bowl of hot water with a towel over ya head works too," Butchy explained just as Lela noticed the rather large basin of hot water he was holding as he walked over to her.

"So I just lean over that with a towel over my head and I won't have a stuffy nose anymore?" Lela checked, quirking one of her eyebrows questioningly as her eyes moved back and forth between the bowl of water and her older brother.

"I guess so," Butchy replied.

"Great, I'm in," Lela said, totally over having blocked sinuses. At this point, she'd try out any idea because she was so sick of being…well…sick. It took the siblings a few minutes to get everything set up right but after some time, Lela emerged from the homemade humidifier with a bright red, yet smiling face.

"Jeez, sis, ya look like a freakin' lobster," Butchy laughed, finding his sister's appearance rather amusing.

"Could you pass me a tissue, please?" Lela asked, holding her hand out expectantly. Butchy got up from the window seat and plucked a tissue from the box before transferring it to his little sister's palm. Once the tissue was in Lela's possession she let out the biggest trumpet Butchy had ever heard as she blew her nose, the only thing that he could have compared it to was an angry elephant. "I really needed that," Lela smiled after balling up the used tissue and tossing it into the bin.

"You really feel better?" Butchy asked, genuinely surprised at his sister's answer as he lifted the basin of water off her lap.

"Yeah, I think that after my nap I'll feel as good as new," Lela giggled, snuggling under her duvet once more, fully prepared to wake up completely cured.

"Great, no more colds," Butchy sighed, relieved that his duties as a stand-in doctor were pretty much over. "You're not allowed to get sick again, ok?" Butchy joked, walking towards the door to leave.

"Ok, fine," Lela laughed, finally happy to be feeling better.

But just as Butchy was reaching for the door handle, he felt a tingling sensation growing in his nose. And before he knew what was happening, Butchy let out an extremely loud sneeze. The two siblings just looked at each other, the same thought spinning around their heads.

"Oh brother," Lela muttered, sliding down underneath her covers in despair.

I guess that Lela had unexpectedly given her brother a gift for taking care of her all day, it's just a shame that the gift happened to be the cold that she'd just gotten rid of. Oh well, it looks like Lela's going to have to return the favour and play nurse for a day...

 **I really hope that you enjoyed it!**

 **Ok, I didn't realise how awful that was until I read it back. I know that it's terribly written, it's super boring and it's quite short but I tried with it, I hope that it's not absolutely horrendous! :/**

 **Ok, so, like I said, I have a couple of questions revolving around my Halloween one-shot series that I'm about to start working on. Now, since I'm going to attempt writing seven one-shots for the week running up to Halloween, I need time to start writing them because I highly doubt that I'd be able to write and check over a whole one-shot per day in the week before Halloween. So, I'm going to start working on them now, which means no more of these regular one-shots until after Halloween. However, I don't know whether you'd be happy to go that long without anything to read. So I was wondering if you would rather that instead of having a week of one-shots, I just post the one-shots once I finish them. Let me know which one you'd prefer me to do. A week of one-shots and no stories until then? Or would you prefer me to post the Halloween one-shots as soon as I've finished them?**

 **Another question I have revolving around the Halloween one-shots is would you prefer it if I created a new story to include all seven one-shots (since they will sort of follow on from each other)? Or post them as extra chapters of Tricks, Treats And Halloween Pranks (my Halloween one-shot from last year)? Please let me know because I really don't know which to go for. :/**

 **I also want to say thank you for the lovely reviews that I got from my last one-shot! Each one really does mean the world to me! You're incredibly sweet and I can't thank you enough for your support! I want to give special thanks to Owllover34 for the song suggestion (which is fabulous!), to Dancing Peach for the incredibly sweet review and the mention at the end of her story (which is incredible by the way, if you haven't already read it then go and do it now, I can guarantee that it's a whole lot better than this one! XD) and to DianaDirectioner for sending me some amazing song suggestions (she's got an amazing new story out too so please go and read that as well as the first one, they're both absolutely remarkable! I can't get enough of reading them and, like Dancing Peach's story, it's definitely a lot better than my work!). Thank you so much you guys! But even if you just take out the time to read my stories then you mean just as much, if I can make one person smile with my writing then I can die a happy person!**

 **I think that's all for now!**

 **Thank you so much for reading!**

 **-cherrygorilla**


	13. Little Anniversary Announcement

**Hello!**

 **You're probably wondering why I'm posting this right now since I said that I wouldn't be putting anything up on this story until Halloween. But today (October 8th) happens to be my two year anniversary on this website! I kind of forgot about it last year but this year I wanted to make a bit more of an effort because it has become such a large part of my life.**

 **Two years ago, I made a decision to post a create an account and post the first chapter of a story that I'd been working on in my spare time and, as cliche as it sounds, it was the best decision that I have ever made. Even though my first story wasn't the best because the content quality was pretty poor (I really don't know how some of you managed to stick with it the whole way through, I know that I wouldn't have been able to) I'm really proud of that story. I'm proud of it because I made so much progress with my writing techniques and I made so many amazing friends through that story. So it's always going to have a special place in my heart. But once that story was finished, people started wanting more, which unexpectedly exploded into so many other story opportunities for me. I'll openly admit that some of them weren't very good at all, but some have proved to grab a little bit of attention. So maybe I'm doing something right.**

 **If it wasn't for joining this website then I probably wouldn't be doing what has become my about its hobby to date: creative writing. And I certainly wouldn't have had the opportunity to get to know so many amazing people that I can happily call my friends. Some special mentions would be: my main inspiration for signing up to the website (auslly4eva22), my wonderful friend from the very beginning (DynamicGiraffe), the friend who never fails to show their support for me (RossLynch4ever), a super sweet friend who was there at the very beginning (Stay-Rossome-R5), the friend whose reviews always managed to make me smile (SunBlazer15), a more recent but still very much appreciated friend (TKDP), one of the sweetest people I've ever met (malstrawberries), again another new friend who is always there to help and support my stories (DianaDirectioner), a fantastic author who I've only ever gotten to talk to through reviews (Dancing Peach), the incredibly supportive and kind friend who I always look forward to talking to (DisneyChannelLover), the wonderful reviewer whose ideas have managed to supply the majority of my one-shots (Owllover34) and finally, the friend who has been there from the beginning with me and has supported me and my work through thick and thin (the amazing LiveLoveRideHorses9817)! There are probably many more of you out there that have been incredibly lovely to me but just because I haven't mentioned you doesn't mean that you mean any less to me. Every single reader that I have makes me want to burst with happiness!**

 **My writing has been through some pretty rough patches over the past two years so I don't really know how some of you have stuck with me all this time. Regardless of that, I want to know if my writing has made an impact on any of you, because i know for a fact that you've made an impact on me! I want to know if there's something special about my writing. If there's a certain way that I write a character, if there's a specific story or chapter in a story that you like, what the first story of mine you read was or if there's something unique about my writing style that makes you stick around for each chapter then please let me know. I just want to make people happy with my work and if I've achieved that with just one of you then that will be a huge accomplishment for me! My life will be made!**

 **Thank you for making these past two years so incredible for me! I can't thank you enough for being a part of one of the greatest experiences of my life so far!**

 **Thank you for reading!**

 **-cherrygorilla**


	14. Hot Chocolate Monopoly (Struts & Lugnut)

**Hello!**

 **I know that I just put up a little announcement thing yesterday but a faithful reviewer of mine (Owllover34 (I'm sure that her name is familiar by now)) let me know that today is her birthday. So happy birthday Owllover34! I wrote out one of your prompts like you asked, I just hope that I did it justice for you!**

 **Here it is!**

Couples Monopoly night had sounded like a great idea at the time, like most activities did when it came to the Wet Side Story characters trying to make decisions. But, also like most activities that the Wet Side Story characters took part in, it ended in disaster. Besides the shouting and arguing that continued throughout the whole game (and that was just between the couples themselves), one of the teens wasn't feeling like their usual self.

"Right, we's is buyin' it," Butchy said as his and Coral's racecar game piece was moved onto the last train station that they needed in order to complete their set.

"No we're not," Coral cut in, batting her boyfriend's hand away as he tried to lay the required paper money on the board.

"Why not?" Butchy asked, looking at the surfer girl like she'd lost her mind.

"'Cause if we do then we'll only have $5 left," Coral replied, shooting Butchy a warning look as she fanned out the five fake $1 bills.

"Who cares?" Butchy bit back, sliding the money across the board anyway. The biker boy exchanged the money for the card with a smug smile as Coral death-stared a hole in the back of his head. It was pretty obvious to see that she wasn't very pleased with him.

"I can't believe you just did that," Coral muttered, frowning at the grinning biker boy as her brother rolled the dice.

"Coral, we's is gonna be rollin' in money any minute now," Butchy said, trying to get his girlfriend back on his side. "Look at all the stuff we's got," he continued, motioning to the array of Monopoly properties that he was hoarding.

"You'd better be right or you're going to be in so much trouble," Coral said, bringing back her warning gaze before turning to watch Lela and Tanner happily gain $100 from the community chest.

"I don't know about you two rolling in money, but we certainly are," Lela giggled, waving the peach-coloured $100 bill in front of her brother's face.

Things started to take a turn for the worse though when it was Struts and Lugnut's turn.

"You wanna roll the dice?" Lugnut asked, holding the two black-spotted, white cubes out to his girlfriend. Struts gently shook her head and kept her eyes focused on the board, too dazed to pay attention to the game properly anymore. Lugnut moved their wheelbarrow game piece and denied buying the property that they'd landed on before leaning closer to the biker girl sat beside him. "You ok?" Lugnut whispered, slipping his hand into hers to give it a small squeeze. Once more, Struts weakly shook her head as her eyes started to bring with tears. "Come on, let's get out of here," Lugnut murmured, standing up and ushering Struts out of Lela and Butchy's attic, leaving behind a room of very confused bikers and surfers.

* * *

"What's this that's been botherin' ya then?" Lugnut asked, handing Struts a mug of hot white chocolate because she didn't like the regular one.

"Nothing really," Struts lied, letting Lugnut sit down beside her on the leather sofa in the biker boy's living room.

"Don't say that, Sweetie, I obviously know that somethin's wrong," Lugnut sighed, sinking into the squashy, brown leather as Struts rested her head against his shoulder.

"It's nothing, Lugnut, I promise," Struts said, mixing the whipped cream into the warm, milky liquid below with the tuile biscuit to occupy herself.

"Yous was fine until we started playing Monopoly though," Lugnut said, trying to piece bits and pieces of information together in order to figure out why Struts was so quiet.

"I just wasn't that bothered about playing," Struts replied before lifting the straw-like biscuit out of her drink and taking a bite of it.

"Struts, you weren't cryin' just because you didn't wanna play," Lugnut said watching Struts place her mug down on the coffee table in front of them.

"I wasn't crying," Struts lied, mumbling in the hope that Lugnut wouldn't hear her correctly.

"Struts," he said, picking up his girlfriend's words despite her efforts to prevent it. The biker boy wrapped his arm around Struts and brought her closer to his chest, pressing her back against the side of his torso and just holding her there. "Look, you know that you can tell me when somethin's wrong. I just wanna help you," he said quietly, giving her a reassuring one-armed hug.

"It's just...Monopoly reminds me about my grandparents," Struts confessed, breaking down her barrier and leaving herself wide open in the range of Lugnut's question firing squad members.

"Tell me about 'em," Lugnut encouraged gently, trying not to pressure the emotionally weak biker girl too much.

"Who?" Struts asked meekly, lifting her head up from Lugnut's stomach to attempt making eye contact with him.

"Your grandparents," Lugnut replied, letting Struts lie back down against his abdomen. "I mean, if ya want to. Maybe it'll help," Lugnut backtracked, realising that he might have come off a little bit nosey.

"Well 'cause my dad left when I was really little, I spent a lot of time with my grandparents. They raised me more than my mom in some ways," Struts softly chuckled. "I remember that they always used to take me to the duck pond at the park. I loved feeding them the old crusts of bread that my grandma brought, but I just didn't like it when they started squawking at me."

"The ducks or your grandparents?" Lugnut asked sarcastically, hoping to lighten the mood a little bit.

"The ducks, silly," Struts giggled. The biker girl let out a deep sigh before continuing to talk about her grandparents, coming up to the bit that she's been wanting to avoid. "And, when we got home from the park or if it was raining, we'd play a board game with a mug of hot chocolate," she continued, fiddling nervously with her fingers as she could sense Lugnut slowly working things out about her. She'd told him that she didn't like the regular hot chocolate, when in reality she couldn't face the thought of stomaching it because it reminded her of her grandparents too much. "Monopoly always used to be our favourite," Struts revealed, her voice trailing off at the end as she took another deep breath to calm herself down before carrying on. "Then one day, I just wanted it to stop. I wanted to grow up too fast, suddenly spending time with grandparents wasn't cool enough anymore. So I begged my mom not to take me, asking to go to friends' houses instead. It wasn't that I didn't love them anymore, I just didn't want to get teased for hanging out with old fuddy-duddies. Then, when my grandma died," Struts choked, letting out a small sob which she desperately tried to conceal.

Lugnut just rubbed her back and continued to listen, not wanting to intrude until he knew that she was done.

"When my grandma died," Struts tried again, having calmed down just enough to finish what she was trying to say. "It just completely destroyed me. I hadn't been there for her in so long and then just like that, she was gone. And I'll never be able to get back those moments that I missed with her. Now I go to see my grandpa every week, but my grandma's death really got to him. I know that he tries not to show it when I'm there because he's so happy to see me that he just wants to have fun, but I can still see that he's lost without her. And it breaks my heart, Lugnut," she sobbed, finally completely breaking down in her boyfriend's arms. "The worst part is though that the people at the retirement home say that his mental health is deteriorating every day, he doesn't remember what things are and he forgets things the second after you've told him them. And they say that it's only a matter of a time before he starts to forget my mom and I too. And even though that hasn't happened yet, I feel like it has. I feel like I've already lost him, Lugnut. It's like when my grandma died, it's just awful. I feel like I only have my mom left now," Struts cried, burying her face into the soft, black material of Lugnut's t-shirt as she sobbed and sobbed.

As soon as Lugnut realised that she was calming down a bit, he decided to come on with some support. "That's not true," he said calmly, running his hand up and down Struts' arm.

"What's not true?" Struts whimpered, guiltily sniffling and wiping her nose on the fabric of Lugnut's t-shirt.

"The fact that you've only got ya mom left," Lugnut explained, playing with a loose strand of Struts's chocolate brown hair.

"What are ya talkin' about, Lugnut," Struts sighed, resting her head against Lugnut's torso, too emotionally exhausted to hold it up any longer.

"You've got me, haven't ya?" the biker boy asked as Struts sat up a little, turning her head to look at him as she did so.

"Huh?" she murmured, her eyes surrounded with a grey blur of wet mascara and eye shadow.

"Well I don't plan on goin' anywhere any time soon," Lugnut said, quirking a smile at the biker girl in front of him in an effort to cheer her up. "I'm here for the long run, Babe."

"You really mean that?" Struts asked, starting to tear up again. Although this time it was just because she couldn't believe that Lugnut was being so sweet to her.

"Course," the biker boy grinned, hugging his girlfriend closer to his chest for probably the hundredth time since they sat down in the living room together. "Why wouldn't I?"

"I think the real question is: how did I get lucky enough to have a boyfriend as amazin' as you?" Struts replied, a small smile tugging at the corners of her lips.

"Well it looks like we've both hit the jackpot then, haven't we?" Lugnut chuckled, making Struts let out a tiny giggle too.

"I guess so," Struts said, looking down at her hands before locking her gaze with the biker boy. "Ya always know how to make me feel better," she admitted shyly. "Thanks for that."

"No problem," Lugnut replied. "It's my job isn't it?"

"Job? Bein' my boyfriend's a job now?" Struts challenged, raising one of her eyebrows at the boy sat beside her.

"You know that's not what I meant," Lugnut said, playfully giving Struts a light shove.

The two teens sat together in a bashful silence with Struts head resting on Lugnut's shoulder. The rise and fall of their chests with each breath mimicking each other's.

"I love you so much," Struts sighed, a dreamy smile spreading across her face as she turned to face her boyfriend.

"I love you too," Lugnut grinned, leaning in to plant a kiss the biker girl's lips.

The rest of the evening was spent in each other's company, watching the first thing that came on Lugnut's new television set and seeing who could make the other laugh the most. They both consumed at least three mugs of hot chocolate each, with every sip being a contest for who could achieve the best whipped-cream moustache. And finishing off the evening falling asleep curled up in each other's arms. The pair of them truly were in love, there was no denying it.

 **I hope that you enjoyed it!**

 **I know that it's a bit on the short side but I didn't find out about it until two days ago, so I had to try to complete it for today. I hope that you don't mind too much!**

 **Once again, happy birthday Owllover34, I really hope that this was alright for you! Thank you for always being so supportive of my stories, I really do appreciate it!**

 **Thank you for reading!**

 **-cherrygorilla**


	15. I Love You S'More (Lela & Tanner)

**Hello!**

 **I'm finally back to this story! And although it's been really nice to get back to writing these prompts, I really, really struggled with this one. Normally when I read a prompt I start getting ideas straight away. But this one, I had nothing...at all. My mind was completely blank. So I combined it with another idea and threw a song in there and hoped for the best. Hopefully it's not too terrible!**

 **I'll let you decide that one though. Here it is!**

"Lela, are you sure that you want to go camping?" Mack asked, almost dropping the tent bag as she hauled it out of the trunk of Brady's car.

"Of course I'm sure," Lela replied simply, linking arms with Tanner and skipping ahead of Mack. "It's something I've always wanted to do."

"But…couldn't it have…waited?" Mack asked, struggling with the various equipment by herself as she tried to keep up with the couple from the 1960s.

"Why? What's wrong with doing it today?" Lela asked, whirling around to face Mack with an obvious air of concern. The last thing that she wanted right now was for the trip to be cancelled. After all, she'd been looking forward to it since that morning, which was when they planned it.

"Well, for a start, we're camping in Brady's backyard," Mack said, stumbling down the steps from the decking to the grass because she was concentrating on talking rather than watching where she was going. The reason why they were setting up camp on the stretch of lawn behind Brady's family home was because Lela had decided to pop out of the ocean with Tanner at her side and 'major problem' on her mind. Apparently, after everyone back in the picture-perfect Wet Side Story world had been bonding over stories of going camping when they were younger, Lela had been hit with the harsh reality of being left out. So she had decided to go to the one person that she idolised, the one person that she was sure would know what to do and what to say to her, even though it would take a journey into another dimension. The leads of the 1960s beach musical had shown up at Mack's door with beaming smiles and a request that Mack and Brady were too kind to turn down. And that's why they had come to the conclusion of going camping that very afternoon. However, at such short notice, the only place that was available to them was Brady's backyard. So getting the two lead characters from Brady's favourite movie past his parents proved to be quite the task. "Plus, we're not exactly prepared for it," Mack finished, eventually dropping the tent bag onto the grass with a huff.

"So we can't do it?" Lela's face fell and her figure slumped, the disappointment of not going through with their plan hitting her at full force.

"No of course we can," Mack backtracked, Lela's expression making her feel like she was being the most evil villain of them all by even suggesting abandoning their event. "It just might not be perfect."

"It doesn't need to be perfect, Mack. I just want to be able to say that I've been camping," Lela reassured her, a grateful smile replacing her disheartened frown. "And have fun with my friends."

"Yeah, I just want to have fun." Tanner's usual dopey lilt crept into his voice as he gazed at Lela and wrapped an arm around her shoulder, trapping her in a hug.

Mack couldn't help but smile at the couple; their happiness to be around each other just seemed to reach out to everyone else too. Life was so simple for them, their sole purpose was to be there for each other and enjoy every second of that. But they weren't content with sticking to that; they wanted so much more in life. They wanted to live their lives to the fullest, but they wanted to do it together. And even though they were made up characters from a film, Mack had so much admiration for them. Little did she know that she was the one who Lela looked up to and adored.

"I found another tent," Brady called, walking out of the door to the patio with a satisfied grin on his face. "Let's start setting up."

"Shall I start setting up this one with Tanner?" Lela asked, scuttling over one of the nylon bags.

"Um, sure, why not?" Mack said, stumbling over her words slightly from her surprise. She hadn't anticipated the fact that Lela was going to be so enthusiastic.

"You just have to slot the poles together and attach the fabric," Brady explained, eyeing the two Wet Side Story leads as they emptied the contents of their tent bag onto the grass.

"Ok, that sounds easy enough," Lela smiled to herself, unfolding the tent fabric and spreading it out in front of her.

"Just wait until you actually try it, Lela," Mack mumbled, already struggling to juggle the various tent poles that she had been handed.

And not even thirty seconds later, Tanner and Lela stood back to admire their work with a simple, "Is this right?"

Mack and Brady's eyes almost popped out of their heads when they saw what Tanner and Lela had accomplished in less than a minute. The tent was fully pitched. Like, entirely complete. How on earth was that possible? No one can do that. But then again, Lela and Tanner aren't just anyone. They're the heroes of a movie, they live in another dimension. Their entire universe runs perfectly, there's never a blip, nothing ever goes wrong. So obviously they're able to pitch tents within seconds because apparently having to struggle with some polyester and metal rods is unheard of. To them, the world is utterly faultless.

"Uh…um…I…" Mack stuttered, lost for words.

"Yeah, that's great," Brady cut in, trying to cover for Mack's inability to form a sentence.

"Do you need some help with that one?" Lela asked, innocently pointing to the tent that Mack and Brady were still figuring out how to get out of the bag, let alone put together.

"Uh, no, we should be fine," Brady said, forcing a smile to put Lela and Tanner's minds at ease.

"Is there anything else you need us to do then?" Lela asked, swishing the skirt of her red and white polka dot dress as she waited for an answer. Yes, Lela had assembled the tent in the dress and heels that she wore to sing Fallin' For Ya in the movie. How? No one has a clue.

"Um…well…we've still got to get some logs for the fire pi-I mean camp fire," Brady said, almost falling into his own trap of confessing to Lela that they weren't actually going to have a campfire, they were just going to be roasting marshmallows over the tiny fire pit on his patio. Listen, Lela's first camping trip couldn't be as perfect as the world that she lived in but she would just have to get over it, ok? It had been planned that morning, how _could_ it be perfect?

"Ooh, where do we get them from?" Lela asked, the prospect of getting to help again sparking her interest.

"There's a pile down here," Brady said, getting up from his spot on the grass before leading Lela and Tanner down to the bottom of his garden. He reached a gate that was set into the fence and unlatched it, revealing a secluded area with a wooden swing-chair in one corner and a pile of logs in the other. Various flowers and shrubs decorated the area and a tree at the back left the blossom from its branches fluttering to the ground, creating a simple yet rustic and beautiful atmosphere. Although it was a pretty normal view for Brady, it was just his garden after all, it was unlike anything that Lela or Tanner had seen before.

"Brady, this is beautiful," Lela breathed, her eyes watching the petals tumble through the air with such intent that they could have passed as a blockbuster movie.

"It is?" Brady asked, seeing the 'dumping ground' of his backyard in a completely different way to how Lela was seeing it.

"Yeah, I've never seen anything like this before," Lela said, taking a few steps forwards into the garden to begin to explore it.

"Well you're free to look around as much as you like, just bring the logs back through once you're done," Brady said, closing the gate behind him before jogging over to Mack to finish pitching their tent.

"Come on, Lela. Let's get started," Tanner grinned, rushing over to the stack of wood and starting to sift through it.

But Lela stayed by the gate, peeking through the gap where it joined to the fence at Mack and Brady, who she had overheard talking about the two 60s characters.

"I still can't get over how fast they put their tent up," Mack said once Brady was back at her side.

"Mack, they live in a perfect world," Brady replied simply. "They probably don't even know what doing something wrong means. Let alone have done something the wrong way themselves."

"Yeah, everything's planned out for them," Mack agreed, seeing Brady's point. "It's like their whole lives have been programmed into them. Who they are friends with, who they fall in love with, where they spend their time, what their future is, what they know, what they think, what they feel…it's all being controlled."

"That's scary to think about."

"Yeah…I mean sometimes life is just hard and all, but at least we can choose our own paths. Lela and Tanner have no choice, it's like they've been brainwashed," Mack finished, finally working out how to slot a metal tent pole into place.

Lela just stared straight ahead, no longer listening to her friends' conversation. It finally hit her, then and there, that she had no control over her life. She was a character created purely for people's entertainment. She wasn't a real person with real feelings or real opinions; she was more or less a shell of a human being. And that meant that Tanner was too, as well as her brother and her friends. All of the people in her life weren't real; she was metaphorically living with cardboard cut outs.

Lela drifted away from the gate, her mind whirling. But how could she be sure that these thoughts that were filling her head were real after everything that Mack and Brady had said? Just as she sunk down onto the rotting wooden chair swing, she heard Tanner shouting something from the other side of the log pile.

"Lela, I'll be back in a second, I'm just going to take these logs back over to Mack and Brady."

Lela didn't reply. She barely even heard Tanner over the blood rushing through her head and pounding in her ears. She tried to even out her breathing but her chest felt tight, like something was crushing it.

How was it all possible? How was she not real? She certainly felt as real as Mack or Brady but apparently it wasn't as simple as that. Was anything that she thought down to her own accord? Did she truly enjoy riding her motorbike? Was pink really her favourite colour? Was she really in love with Tanner? Or was that all set up too? Did Tanner even love her back? A thousand questions were bouncing around her brain, each one screaming to be heard above one another.

"Lela? Where did you go? You were just stood there a minute ago," Tanner called, snapping Lela out of her thoughts.

Lela could tell how worried he sounded just from the tone of his voice. It was such a small thing to get worried about, but obviously not to Tanner. Lela was his entire world after all. What was he to do without the one thing at the centre of his universe?

"Lela?" Tanner continued, searching the garden for some sign of his girlfriend. The longer it was before he found Lela, the more panicked he became. So when he eventually stumbled across her, relief flooded over him. "Where did you go? I thought you wanted to help out," Tanner said, stopping in his tracks as soon as he caught sight of the raven-haired biker girl.

Lela couldn't find her voice to reply.

"What are you doing? What's wrong?" Tanner asked, his concern knitting his eyebrows together. The surfer boy sat down next to Lela on the swing chair, the added wait causing the rusted chains to creak and strain.

"Tanner we're not real," Lela croaked, eventually managing to force out some words.

"What are you talking about? I feel fine," Tanner replied, completely missing what Lela was trying to say.

"No, Tanner. I know you do, I do as well, but we're not," Lela said, anxiously gnawing on her lip.

"Lela, I want to help you but I don't know what on earth you're talking about," Tanner said, feeling guilty for not understanding, which just made Lela even more upset. He couldn't help it; it was just how he had been created. Maybe if Tanner had been left to live his life on his own accord, he would be smart and successful by now. But instead he'd been dragged into this story like Lela and he was being portrayed as a ditzy narcissist with a pretty face and a half-decent singing voice, there for some comedy relief in the film. There was so much more to Tanner, to all of her friends, which no one would ever get to see.

"We're characters in a movie, like Mack and Brady said. We don't control anything we do," Lela explained, her voice faltering as her icy blue eyes started to well up. Tanner placed his hand on top of hers and gave it a small squeeze, encouraging her to continue. "Everything that we do is being controlled. Everything from choosing what we want for dinner to choosing who we fall in love with. What if we don't really love each other? What if we only feel this way about each other because we've been programmed too?"

Lela fell back and let her head rest against Tanner's shoulder. The surfer boy closed her into a hug as the pair sat in silence. He was worried that Lela would want some sort of advice, advice that he couldn't give. After all, how could he give advice on something that he could barely wrap his head around? But something that he was certain of was that telling Lela the truth was better than filling her head with lies to make her feel better.

"Lela, if it wasn't my choice to fall in love with you," Tanner started, bowling Lela down with fear at the prospect of where this conversation might be heading. "Then I want to thank whoever made that decision, because it's made me the happiest guy under the sun."

"Really?" Lela asked, lifting her head to meet Tanner's gaze.

"Yeah," Tanner awkwardly chuckled, his cheeks dusted with a bashful blush.

Lela couldn't help but smile at how adorable he was. Tanner was right, even if someone had picked Tanner out for her to fall in love with, they couldn't have made a better choice. And to think that there was a possibility that if she was left to live her life freely, she might never have found Tanner at all made her extremely grateful for what she had.

Tanner pushed a strand of hair away from Lela's face, pulling it away from her lip gloss, which was like fly paper for her hair. His calloused hand brushed against the soft, pale skin of her cheek as the pair leaned in toward each other. Their kiss was short, shorter than Lela had anticipated anyway. But as Tanner pulled away, he looked like he had something on his mind. At first Lela was concerned but, like always, she had nothing to worry about. Tanner was just adding fuel to the fire in her heart.

Tanner: "Never knew I could feel like this, like I've never seen the sky before

Want to vanish inside your kiss, every day I love you more and more"

This time it was Lela's turn to blush. With each new line her heart melted like an ice lolly on a summer's day. If everything that Tanner was saying was true, then how could she ever have doubted their love in the first place? She knew at that moment that Tanner was definitely the guy for her.

Tanner: "Listen to my heart, can you hear it sing?

Telling me to give you everything

Seasons may change, winter to spring

But I love you, until the end of time

Come what may, come what may

I will love you until my dying day"

After everything that Tanner had just said – well, sung – to her, Lela felt obliged to return the favour. And although her mind went blank at first, her heart decided to speak for her.

Lela: "Suddenly the world seems such a perfect place

Suddenly it moves with such a perfect grace"

Lela & Tanner: "Suddenly my life doesn't seem such a waste"

Lela: "It all revolves around you"

Lela & Tanner: "And there's no mountain too high, no river too wide

Sing out this song and I'll be there by your side

Storm clouds may gather and stars may collide"

Tanner: "But I love you"

Lela: "I love you"

Tanner: "'Til the end of time" (Lela: "Until the end of time")

Lela & Tanner: "Come what may, come what may

I will love you until my dying day

Oh come what may, come what may

I will love you"

Lela: "I will love you

Suddenly the world seems such a perfect place"

Lela & Tanner: "Come what may, come what may

I will love you until my dying day"

After the swelling music from their romantic ballad had died away, the sound of splintering wood could be heard ripping through the silence. Tanner jumped to his feet, dragging Lela with him after he felt the wood beneath him beginning to buckle. The pair shared an awkward, embarrassed laugh as they both glanced down at the piece of furniture. The wooden swing seat was obviously a lot older than they couple had previously thought.

But now that they no longer had the fear of breaking the wooden hammock chair, Tanner slid his arms around Lela's waist and brought her towards him. Lela looped her arms around the tanned boy's neck as he dazzled her with a smile. Not the fake kind with the stupid twinkle and the idiotic twist. This was a genuine smile that spoke directly to her and conveyed that he was wholeheartedly happy.

This time their kiss was longer. They both got lost in a mess of passion and desire, totally oblivious to the world around them.

* * *

After eventually breaking off their make out session and then proceeding to make themselves look a little bit more presentable, they returned to the main part of the garden to find Mack and Brady putting the finishing touches to their tent.

"Oh goody, you finally got it done," Lela said, linking arms with Tanner and resting her head on his arm.

"Yeah, but it took us long enough," Mack sighed, forcing a grin onto her face. But as soon as she saw how happy the 1960s couple looked now, she couldn't help but let her lips slip into a smile again. "Anyway, now onto the fun part of camping," she continued, letting out a chuckle as Lela bounced around on the balls of her feet in excitement.

* * *

The rest of the afternoon was full of laughter for the four teens. Mack and Brady decided to take this as their opportunity to reminisce over the games that they used to play when they went camping in their younger years, which is why they spent hours playing Capture The Flag and Hide And Seek. But as the night was drawing to an end and the game of charades around the fire pi- I mean campfire was starting to turn into helpless fumbling, which was followed by unstoppable bouts of giggles, the four teens decided to break out the marshmallows.

Whilst Brady was stuffing his fourth s'more into his mouth and Mack was trying to prevent him from spitting it all out over them both, Lela and Tanner were snuggled up together, feeding each other roasted marshmallows. With the firelight flickering in the reflection of their eyes, the couple shared a quick kiss. The warmth from the fire accompanying the white-hot spark that was ricocheting between them. And that spark was all that Lela needed to solidify the fact that she was totally and utterly, head over heels in love with a certain surfer boy called Tanner.

 **Yeah...that was pretty terrible, wasn't it? I hope that you enjoyed it anyway though. Like I said at the start, I had no ideas for this one-shot so I just tried my best with it. I'm pretty terrible at writing fluff for any couple, especially Lela and Tanner so I just did what I could with it.**

 **Thank you to TKDP for suggesting the idea for me to write about Mack and Brady taking Lela and Tanner camping, I haven't been camping myself so I was a bit stuck for what to include but hopefully I did it justice**

 **And I tried to do a loose version of TeenBeachGirl101's request to do something around Lela pretending to get hurt and Tanner coming to find her. I guess that you could say that Lela was hurt on the inside...no? Never mind then. XD** **I tried my best, ok? I know it's terrible but at least I tried for you!**

 **In case any of you were wondering, the song that I used is called Come What May and it's from Moulin Rouge. In my opinion, this is one of the most beautiful songs of all time and I knew that I had to include it in one of my stories at some point. And since my mind was blank for this one, I decided to throw it in and hope for the best!**

 **I think that's all for now though! My next one-shot will be the second to last so we're coming up to the last stretch now!**

 **Thank you for reading!**

 **-cherrygorilla**


	16. Suggestive Snoozes (Struts & Seacat)

**Hello!**

 **I'm here with another one-shot! Thank you to Owllover34 for providing me with another wonderful prompt, I hope that I did it justice for you! Stay tuned until the end because I have a pretty important announcement that I hope you'll be excited about!**

 **Anyway, here's the one-shot!**

"As most of you may know, I am due to issue you all with an assignment," Mrs Elliot explained, her polished, clunky black heels smacking against the hardwood flooring as she paced along the rows of tables at the front of the classroom. A collective sigh rose from the mass of students in the room, a sign that this wasn't good news. "And since we have just finished our piece of literature for this semester, it's the perfect timing," she continued, ignoring her students' huffs of discontent. "After the last set of group projects turned out to be such a disaster, I have decided to pick the pairings." The sighs had turned to groans now. Mrs Elliot pushed a piece of limp, straw-like ashy blonde hair behind her ear and picked up a notebook off her desk, a tired, fed-up sigh passing her lips as she did so.

Struts' brain switched off at this point, choosing instead to focus its attention to daydreaming and staring out of the English Literature classroom's doorway. Her mind was swimming with thoughts of her shopping trip with Lela and CheeChee that weekend and her plans with Lugnut for lunch time and tomorrow night. But just as her head was beginning to slip from its perch, which was her biro-covered hand (oh the joys of being left handed), she heard her name being called.

"Stacy Miller," Mrs Elliot announced, causing Struts' ears to perk up and her head to snap to attention. "And Sam Anderson."

Struts let out a small, deflated sigh as she turned her head and made eye contact with the boy in question, who was lazily slumped in his chair at the back of the classroom next to Tanner. Seacat met her gaze and mustered a half-hearted smile, an identical deflated sigh escaping his lips.

Now don't get Struts wrong, there's nothing wrong with Seacat. From what she can piece together of the few conversations that they had had, he seems like a genuinely nice guy. But he's not exactly known for taking school very seriously, or taking anything seriously now that she comes to think about it. And she couldn't let her grades slip anymore this semester or she would be grounded for life. So it already sounded like she was going to end up doing most of the work.

The school bell blared out in the hallway a few minutes later, signalling the end of class. Mrs Elliot dismissed her students almost immediately afterwards to their relief, each one of them sliding their books off their desks into their bags and shuffling towards the door. Struts, however, just grabbed her binder and notebooks and made a break for the door. She was already halfway down the corridor when she heard someone's footsteps pounding along behind her. And before she knew what was happening, Seacat had stepped into her stride.

"You were out of there in a hurry," Seacat said, trying to strike up a conversation as he slung his navy blue backpack over his shoulder.

"Yeah well I've got a lunch date with Lugnut in ten minutes," Struts said tightly, not really in the mood to be making polite conversation with the surfer boy that she barely knew.

"Still doesn't mean that you have to run over freshmen," Seacat teased, attempting a stab at humour as Struts almost crashed into a group of three 9th grade boys.

"Look, is there somethin' that ya want?" Struts snapped, brushing off Seacat's previous comment and trying to hide her embarrassment that was revealing itself as a deep blush on her cheeks.

"I just wanted to know when you wanted to get started on the assignment," Seacat explained, holding his hands up in mock-surrender. It was pretty clear to see that Struts wasn't too fond of this encounter already so Seacat didn't want to make matters worse by being sarcastic.

"You actually care about it?" Struts questioned, genuinely surprised at this revelation.

"Sadly, yes," Seacat admitted with a sheepish sigh. "My parents said that if I fail another paper then I'm pretty much confined to the house, so…"

"Looks like we're in the same situation then, don't it?"

"Your parents are threatening you too?"

"Yep, my mom's pretty strict about this kind of thing," Struts sighed, adjusting the bundle of books in her arms.

"Do you want to get a head start on it then?" Seacat asked as the pair cut through the throngs of pupils onto another branch of the corridor.

"Sure, why not?" Struts said absentmindedly, only half-listening to what the surfer boy was saying.

"Shall we do it at my house?" Seacat suggested, not realising that Struts was barely paying attention. "You can come round any time after seven."

"Sure thing, seven sounds fine," Struts said, still just catching parts of the conversation as she dug around in the pocket of her leather jacket.

"Groovy, here's my address," Seacat said, fumbling with his backpack to take out a notebook. He tore off the corner of a piece of paper and scribbled a few words on it before holding it out to Struts.

"Thanks, and here's my stuff," Struts smirked, thrusting her notebooks and binders into Seacat's chest without even turning to look at him. She carelessly stuffed her books into his arms before plucking the piece of paper with his address out from between his fingers. "Just drop 'em off at my locker."

"What? Why?" Seacat asked, his eyebrows furrowing as he flailed around to avoid dropping the biker girl's books.

"'Cause I can't be bothered to," Struts said nonchalantly, before she un-wrapped a piece of bubblegum and tossed it into her mouth.

"I don't know your locker combination though," Seacat blundered, only just managing to keep control of the extra load of books.

"It's on the inside the cover of my binder," Struts drawled, twisting a strand of hair around her finger. "Thanks," she added, mischievously shooting Seacat a wink before strutting off down the corridor. The hem of her black and white skirt swished around her thighs as she swung her hips, keeping in rhythm with the even taps of her pink stilettoes on the floor.

Seacat just huffed and rolled his eyes, turning on his heels and walking off in search of the biker girl's locker. They hadn't even started their project yet and she was already bossing him around.

* * *

"I don't think that there's any doubt that we're putting Puck as the 'class clown', right?" Seacat asked, taking a second to look up from his notes and glance across at Struts. However, the biker girl's chest rose and fell in a steady rhythm with her breathing and her eyes had slid shut. Either Seacat's couch was a lot comfier than he had previously thought or it was getting really late. The latter turned out to be the most realistic though because as soon as Seacat looked over at the clock on the mantel piece, it shouted at him that it was almost midnight.

"What?" Struts mumbled, catching the end of Seacat's question as merely a muffled sound. She stifled a yawn and tried to prise her eyes open, which proved to be rather hard since she'd been snoozing for so long that her mascara had become tacky and was basically gluing her eyelashes together. If that wasn't a sign that she should just stay asleep though then what was?

"Do you want to call it a night?" Seacat asked, changing his question because he quickly realised how tired Struts was.

"Ok, if that's what ya want," Struts sighed, trying to play it off cool like she hadn't just been drifting off to sleep since ten o'clock.

"Well I'm fine but you, Sleeping Beauty, are obviously not a night owl," Seacat scoffed, dumping his pile of textbooks and notepads onto the coffee table in front of him.

"What's that supposed to mean? Anyway, you're not exactly wide awake," Struts snapped, switching the focus of the conversation away from her as she watched Seacat let out a large yawn of his own.

"Maybe that's 'cause it's almost midnight," Seacat said, motioning to the clock above the fire place again. "But I'm not the one who's been asleep for the past two hours."

"I have not been asleep for two hours," Struts argued, crossing her arms over her chest and frowning at the surfer boy sat beside her.

"Tell that to your makeup," Seacat said sarcastically, smirking as Struts' expression turned to one of horror.

Struts jumped to her feet and ran over to the mirror through the doorway into the hall before starting to frantically scrub at her eyes with her hands, attempting to make the heavily smudged rings of eyeliner and eyeshadow fade. But she just made them look worse. "Oh god, I look a sight," Struts sighed in defeat, tipping her head and self-consciously shielding her face from view with her hand as she walked back over to the couch.

"You don't look that bad," Seacat yawned, lazily throwing his arm over the back of the sofa as his head rolled to rest against the cushioned part of it.

"Yeah right," Struts muttered, not believing a word of what the surfer boy was telling her as she angrily flopped down onto the sofa beside him. Shouldn't he be taking this as the perfect opportunity to make fun of her? He had been subtly slipping playful insults into their conversations all night up until this point after all.

"I'm being serious, I don't know why you worry so much about it," Seacat said, his eyelids drooping with every word despite his efforts of trying to battle the pull of sleep. "It's not like you're not pretty."

Seacat was barely making any sense to Struts, in her opinion anyway, but Struts didn't have the energy to argue. And apparently Seacat didn't have the energy to defend his point, because when Struts turned her head to look at him she saw that he had given in to the temptation of sleep and was snoring softly.

Struts sighed and started to search in her pocket for the keys to her bike so that she could leave, but as she let out another yawn she felt her eyes threatening to close. Struts blinked a few times to try to wake herself up but that didn't work at all, she'd gone past the point of being able to prevent herself falling asleep now. Seconds later the biker girl was out like a light, with nothing that she could do to stop it happening.

And before the two teens knew what had happened, the night had disappeared and morning had rolled around. And with it, it brought a group of rather familiar boys to Seacat's front door.

* * *

The two teens were roused by the sound of the door being thrown open and four sets of footsteps strolling into the living room. Little did they know that with the footsteps came a lot of imminent drama.

"Seacat, dude, we've literally been stood outside for ten minutes. Are you deaf or something? Butchy's been shouting really-" Tanner rambled, having found the spare key on top of the door frame and deciding that if his friend wasn't answering the door then he would just barge straight in. But his speech was cut short when he wandered into the living room and saw Seacat and Struts together.

That night, when the two teens had fallen asleep on the sofa, they had ended up in some rather unflattering positions. Not on their own accord, of course. But it certainly didn't look that way when the four other Wet Side Story boys walked in on them. Over the course of the night, Seacat had fallen backwards, so that he was lying on his back with his arm still slung over the back of the sofa. However, Struts had managed to gradually lean further and further to the side and had eventually gone so far that she had toppled over completely and was essentially lying on top of Seacat with her bottom sticking up in the air. Then, to top it all off, Seacat's arm had slipped off the back of the sofa and was now cradling Struts and Struts' face had been squashed against Seacat's, which left behind a big smudge of her bright pink lipstick. Obviously none of this was intended but from a glance it did look a lot like they had intentionally slept that way. And that's definitely not a good thing considering his Struts' boyfriend was in the room.

"What the hell, man?!" Lugnut yelled, hardly able to believe what he was seeing as he stood behind Tanner and Rascal in the doorway.

Seacat had obviously heard that there were people in his house now, which prompted him to groggily prise his eyes open. But when he did he got the shock of his life since he was met with the sight of Struts' face dangerously close to his. "Oh my god," Seacat blundered, shoving Struts off him so fast that she fell onto the floor with an almighty thud.

"Woah, what's going on?" Struts cried, being rather abruptly woken up as she hit the floor. She raised her head and made eye contact with Seacat, who looked like he was literally about to mess his pants.

"Lugnut, I swear this isn't what it looks like," Seacat said, trying to explain himself before Lugnut punched the wall, which knew wouldn't be very long.

"What is it then?" Butchy asked, not really approving of the situation either since he treated Struts like a little sister. And the thought of seeing her with a surfer in such a way that he just had, made him a little bit sick to the stomach.

"Yeah, it doesn't exactly look innocent, does it?" Lugnut barked.

"It was nothing, I promise," Seacat tried again, scrambling up into a seated position.

"You think that as soon as I turn my back you can get move in on my girl?" Lugnut shouted, shoving Tanner and Rascal to the side and storming over to the one guy in the world that he liked the least at this moment in time.

"Of course not, we were working on a project for school," Seacat shot back, swinging his legs over the side of the sofa, very narrowly avoiding kicking Struts in the head.

"Oh yeah, that makes a bunch of sense. It totally explains why you slept with my girlfriend!" Lugnut bellowed, starting to turn red in the face from being so mad.

"What?!" Struts cried, feeling like the floor had just disappeared beneath her.

"What the hell are you talking about?!" Seacat cried, equally disgusted by the accusation.

"Was I drugged or somethin'? 'Cause I have no recollection of any of this happenin'," Struts asked, having to process a lot of things considering that she had just been woken up.

"Lugnut, why do you think that I'd sleep with _your_ girlfriend when I have one of my own?" Seacat asked, completely ignoring Struts' comment and squaring up to the biker boy.

"Does it look like I'm in the mood to be answering questions, surfer scum," Lugnut snarled, grabbing Seacat by the collar of his hoodie and slamming him into the opposite wall. "I'm not going to ask you again. Why did you sleep with Struts?" he continued, his voice quiet and shaky from rage as he threatened the surfer boy.

"He didn't sleep with me!" Struts exclaimed, scrambling to her feet.

"I don't even want to speak to you," Lugnut growled, glowering at Struts before turning his attention back to Seacat. "We'll discuss it later," he added shortly afterwards.

"Oh stop bein' such an idiot, Lugnut," Struts spat, throwing her crossed arms across her chest as she shot daggers at her boyfriend. "Of course I wouldn't sleep with him, what kind of a girl do ya think I am?!"

"I thought I said that I wasn't gonna talk about this," Lugnut said, refusing to look at the biker girl after he struggled to even speak to her.

"No, I'm clearin' this up now," Struts said firmly, standing her ground. "You, mister, need to stop jumpin' to conclusions so quickly. And control that damn temper of yours, nothin' ever turns out well when it comes out. How could you think somethin' so low of me? I can't believe you!"

"Struts," Lugnut started, his grip slightly loosening on Seacat's collar as his girlfriend spoke. But Struts wasn't done yet.

"Anyway, I'm surprised you'd think of me doin' somethin' like that with Seacat when we haven't even done it ourselves," Struts challenged, shooting the back of Lugnut's head a taunting smirk. "Not that it's my choice, but ya know…"

Lugnut just froze. That was definitely not what he had been expecting to hear today, especially after he had boasted otherwise to the biker boys, unbeknownst to Struts (or so he thought). He could have sworn that he heard Butchy choke on air, so he didn't even dare to look at him for fear of dying of embarrassment. Seacat desperately had to supress the urge to smile though after he saw how uncomfortable Lugnut looked.

"Now, I'd greatly appreciate it if ya didn't flatten my project partner before we actually finish the project. 'Cause if I don't get a good grade on this then ya definitely won't be makin' what you've been sayin' to the boys true," Struts finished, putting in a final blow to add insult to injury. It turns out that she had overheard the rumours of Lugnut telling everyone that they had gone all the way and wasn't at all pleased with him.

Butchy faked a cough from the doorway to mask his snort of laughter and Tanner and Rascal both just pretended to be staring off into space, feeling too awkward to do anything else.

Lugnut slowly released Seacat and took a step back from him, still in too much shock to properly look at Struts though.

"Come on, you," Struts sighed, grabbing Lugnut's shoulders before steering him towards the door. The three boys all parted as the couple approached them, each one watching them intently as they passed. "I think that I need to talk some sense into you," she continued, pushing Lugnut out of the door before following him out and slamming the door behind her. Seacat could have sworn that he felt the house shake.

The four remaining boys all just looked at one another, just as shaken as the house after what had just happened. No one really knew what to do or say until Rascal suggested that they just go out anyway and leave Lugnut behind with Struts. The other three agreed wholeheartedly because, for one, they didn't really want to abandon their 'guys' day' plans and two: no one really wanted to face the couple after the shouting match that they had just witnessed.

* * *

Later that day, when the four boys were back at Big Momma's, Struts and Lugnut sauntered through the door, arm in arm. And they appeared to have gotten over their little spat too, because within seconds of them stepping through the door they shared a little smooch. It was just another bump in the road. The kind that jolts the people of the backseat around so that they become even closer. And this was one of those cases. Struts and Lugnut worked out their differences and at least now they knew that nothing like that would happen again, they'd both learned from their mistakes. Lugnut promised not to lose his temper anymore (although that one could be debatable) and Struts promised not to accidentally fall asleep on anymore boys (which sounded a lot easier than it actually was).

"You got off lightly on that one, buddy," Tanner chuckled, watching relief flood over his friend at the sight of the couple that he had almost torn apart happily together once again.

"Tell me about it," Seacat sighed, very thankful that he wasn't sitting there with a broken nose.

He had better do a good job on this school project with Struts because he had a pretty big favour to repay her after she saved his ego from being destroyed earlier today...

Oh, and in case you were wondering, they got an A for their final project, which the pair gladly received. It may have had a rocky start, but their partnership ended up being a great one, even if it had landed them in a lot of trouble from their significant others.

 **I hope that you enjoyed it!**

 **Once again, thank you to Owllover34 for submitting the idea, I really hope that it was as good as you hoped that it would be!**

 **Like I've said before, my next prompt will be the last one-shot and after that I will be moving back on to Reality Check. Don't worry though, I will be doing a brief recap of everything that's happened so far in that at the start of the next chapter so that if you do want to keep reading my work, you won't have to read all 25 chapters of it to know what's happening. And if you still have questions after that then feel free to leave me a review or send me a PM so that I can explain it to you further. :)**

 **I mentioned in the author's note at the beginning that I had an announcement to make and I can now reveal that I will be writing a short Christmas story over the course of December (like my Halloween one). I don't know yet if it's going to have seven chapters like my last one because that proved to be a lot of work and gave me a lot of stress, but I will definitely be doing a multi-chapter story. I'd received an amazing prompt from Owllover34 for an idea (check the reviews if you want to read it over in more detail) where someone takes pictures of the Wet Side Story teens in awkward situations that look worse than they are (kind of like what happened in this story). I think that I'm going to set it out where each chapter will centre around its own awkward situation that will be shown through a photo at the beginning and then will be explained further on. So, with that idea in mind, I really need your help thinking of scenarios for the characters to get in. I would prefer it if they had a Christmas theme (since it is a Christmas story) and if you would like a specific character to be at the centre of the awkward situation then please specify that too. I'm also accepting song requests if you have any ideas for that. I really just need all the help that I can get so let me know if you have an idea! :)**

 **I think that's all for now though! Stay tuned for the next one-shot, I'll try to get it done as quickly as possible! And trust me, I've saved my favourite (and hopefully the best) one for last!**

 **Thank you for reading!**

 **-cherrygorilla**


	17. The Start Of It All (Mack & Brady)

**Hello!**

 **I'm back with the final one-shot, for now anyway. I don't see myself putting another one of these up until I've completed Reality Check (which isn't anywhere near done yet but I'll try to condense the rest of the story as much as I can) so this is going to be it for a while.**

 **Anyway, I started this story with a Mack & Brady one-shot so I thought that it would only be fitting to end with one too! And Lilypadsinwater's idea was too adorable to pass up and I knew as soon as I saw it that it would be the perfect one to end on. So I won't delay it any longer, please enjoy the last one-shot of Surf, Sun, Sand! **

It was a warm evening, which wasn't a surprise due to the early summer weather, but there still happened to be a light breeze that blew wisps of Mackenzie's chocolate brown hair across her face. With the hand that wasn't holding onto her novel and water bottle, she repeatedly tried to brush it away but didn't have much success. Eventually she just tucked it behind her ear and hoped for the best then looked around to make sure that no one had seen her attempt at juggling the items in her arms as she fixed her hair. Next time she came out she'd have to remember a bag.

Even after looking around to check that no one was around, she had managed to miss a certain boy with shiny, blonde hair a few feet down the beach from her. Mack fumbled with her possessions and hoped that he wouldn't notice her, averting her gaze so that if he looked up he wouldn't realise that _she_ had noticed _him_. But as Mack resumed her journey, a sound besides the quiet lapping of the waves and the gentle rustle of the palm tree leaves filled the air. The boy was singing. Singing to his tablet…What on earth was he doing?

Mack's steps slowed _again_ and she found herself staring at the boy _again_. Did he realise that he was singing out loud or was he just-

"You found something you like?"

Oh good lord, he'd noticed her. Not only had he noticed her, he was now trying to make a conversation with her.

"Uh…I…um…er…" Mack stuttered, so surprised that she'd been caught staring that she almost dropped the belongings that she'd bundled into her arms.

"I'm not that interesting, am I?" the blonde boy chuckled, tapping something on his tablet as he looked up at the brunette.

"Well you were just singing your head off, am I really supposed to just walk past that?" Mack asked before she could stop herself. She wasn't normally one to just go out speaking to people she barely knew, especially in such a comfortable, sarcastic manner. What had gotten into her?

"Fair point," the boy chuckled before attempting another conversation starter. "So what are you doing out on the beach at this time?"

"I was just walking home actually," Mack replied, shooting a quick glance down the stretch of sand in front of her, which she was supposed to be traversing right about now. But instead she was talking to this strange blonde boy who she barely knew. Why did she always have to get herself into such awkward situations? "What about you?" she continued, mentally kicking herself afterwards for letting her mouth run off and talk without her mind telling it what to say. Why couldn't she just have stopped talking and walked home?

"I'm watching a movie," the blonde answered simply, indicating to the tablet in his hands as he came face to face with Mack.

"By yourself? On a beach?" Mack questioned, raising one of her eyebrows at the boy in front of her.

"Uh, where else would I watch Wet Side Story? Apart from everywhere else that has a screen that is," the boy chuckled, watching Mack roll her eyes and grunt at the name of the film. "And it's not my fault I don't have any friends here. Unlike you of course," the boy continued sarcastically, taking a playful dig at the girl as he jokingly looked from side to side and confirmed that Mack was alone too. "Oh wait..."

"I'm perfectly fine on my own, thank you very much," Mack sighed, trying to hide her smile. Gosh, why did cute guys with a sense of humour have to be her only weakness?

"Well I'm not, I need some company," the blonde boy smirked, grabbing Mack's wrists and leading her over to his deck chair set up. "Wanna watch the awesomest movie ever made?" he asked, sitting her down in the deck chair before shoving his tablet into her hands, which was still showing the title of the film.

"I don't think awesomest is a real word," Mack quipped, gently dumping her belongings on the ground before handing the tablet back to the boy. Wait, why had she just put her stuff down? She wasn't actually staying, was she? What was she doing? It was like she had no control over her actions anymore. "And even if it was, that movie's definitely not it," Mack added, crossing her arms over her chest as Brady unfolded another beach chair next to hers.

"Check it out with me," the boy started, hopping over the back of the chair before flopping down beside Mack in it. "And if you don't have a good time, I'll buy you a mango smoothie. Either way, you win."

Gosh darnit, Mack really did like mangoes. Especially in smoothie form.

"Ok fine," Mack sighed, reluctantly giving in no matter how much her conscience was telling her to just grab her things and go home.

"Awesome," the blonde smiled, adjusting a few things on his tablet before holding out in front of them both. "This angle ok?" he checked, quickly glancing to Mack to make sure that she could see the screen alright.

"Yeah, it's fine," Mack reassured him, finding herself leaning in to the blonde as their gazes fixed to the screen and the first few tinkling notes drifted from the tablet's tiny, built-in speaker.

"Trust me, you're gonna love this," the boy grinned, accidentally leaning in so close to the tablet that he bumped shoulders with the girl beside him. The pair both blushed and looked away, too embarrassed to make eye contact again. But within seconds, the blonde's eyes were fixed on the tablet screen again, so Mack's followed suit.

The movie played out the same way as every time that she had seen it with her grandfather; the same songs, the same air-headed characters and the same pathetic 'women are weaklings that need to be protected by a man' underlining plot that every movie from that era seemed to have. But rather than focusing on the plot or the movie in general to be honest, Mack found herself watching the boy's reactions. His little laughs that he tried to cover up after letting one slip, the smile that curled his lips up when the two leads got together, the humming that was really his supressed version of the loud singing that she'd overheard upon her arrival and way that they both flushed crimson every time that they were caught by each other (Mack caught staring and the blonde caught doing something goofy).

With every new scene change came an explanation from the 'Wet Side Story expert' of what was really going on beyond all of the simple dialogue and how it was a _vital_ part of the plot. And although Mack pretended to be interested in what the blonde was saying, she couldn't help but find herself getting distracted. Her mind kept wandering to how his eyes shared their colour with the slightly charred logs of a campfire, and how their warmth matched the fire's flames. How his smile brought out the tiniest trace of a dimple on his cheek. How the ties of his bracelets tickled her thighs as he held the tablet out in front of her. How she could feel his breath on her face every time he'd hint at a laugh. And most importantly, how her heart wouldn't stop fluttering at every one of his movements. Why couldn't she shake this feeling? It was barely the first week of summer; this time was meant to be for her, not for getting stupid crushes on random guys.

As Mack saw that the movie was drawing to a close and the final song was starting to play, she started to gather her belongings together. But as the characters were singing for what felt like the twentieth time that it was the 'best summer ever' (unlike what Mack's would be if she didn't manage to pull herself together), the boy beside her jumped to his feet and slid the tablet onto his seat behind him.

"What are you doing?" Mack asked, cautiously dropping her sunglasses into her lap as she stared up at the boy.

"You've already heard my amazing singing," he started sarcastically before holding his hand out to the brunette. "So now you get to sample my awesome dance moves too."

He was more or less asking her to dance. Oh god. Mack hated dancing. She had two left feet. And one of those two left feet would probably end up crushing his perfectly normal, cool dancer feet.

"Uh…I'm not really much of a dancer," Mack stuttered awkwardly, feeling her cheeks break out into yet another blush.

"Sure you are," the blonde smiled, using his outstretched hand to pull her to her feet, making her book, sunglasses and water bottle fall out of her lap. "And does it look like I care? This is just for fun, remember?" he finished, spinning her off to the side with a cheeky grin.

"I think I've had enough fun," Mack confessed, stumbling her way to a stop after the twirl.

"Trust me, you can never have enough fun," the boy chuckled, going in to grab the girl's free hand. "Especially when you're with me," he added jokingly.

"You're too confident for your own good. You know that, right?" Mack said, pushing down a laugh and the tingling feeling that had shot through her arm as the boy touched it.

"Of course," the boy replied, keeping up their game by finishing his comment with a fake, smouldering look. But no matter whether the look was put on or not, it still made Mack feel like dissolving into a puddle before she composed herself again.

"People are going to be watching us," Mack said, trying another excuse to get out of embarrassing herself further.

"We're the only ones here," the boy replied, looking around the beach with a laugh to see that it was completely empty. "Unless you count the fireflies but I'm sure that they won't tell anyone," he teased as the music started to build.

This time Mack let out a small laugh, letting down her guard just long enough for it to slip out. The boy instantly picked up on this and smirked at her, relishing in the fact that he'd managed to coax a laugh out of her. So then his next mission, for the remaining minute or so of the movie was to make her giggle as much as possible. And that included fully rapping out the bridge of the film's song titles after the small interlude and shouting out the dance moves for the final chorus of the song so that they could dance it together. Yes, Mack jumped on his toes. But the blonde just laughed it off and hollered to keep going no matter what. They crashed into each other numerous times and almost kicked a palm tree more times than they should have done but the blonde boy got his wish because the pair of teens were laughing their heads off as the song drew to a close. As the characters lined up to say their farewells and Mack finally got a break from dancing, the blonde scrambled around the girl's deck chair to gather her stuff up for her. With each goodbye message that he repeated off by heart, he handed her another one of her belongings. As the last 'ciao' was uttered, Mack's arms had been stuffed with everything that she'd brought to the beach from her beach towel to her phone, the only thing that hadn't been picked up yet (and seemed to be forgotten about) were her dusty pink sunglasses. Yet they were quickly remembered after the blonde boy took a step backwards and a snapping crunch broke through the quiet hum of the fading music echoing from the tablet. His face flooded with horror and Mack's eyes darted to the sand behind him before eventually fixing on the cracked remains of her sunglasses.

"Oh my god, I'm so sorry," the boy breathed, his voice reflecting his panic-stricken expression. He rushed to scoop up the fractured pieces of plastic as he continued to blabber on, "I'm sure it's fine, it can't be that bad." But then he saw the state of the piece of eyewear and thought otherwise. "Ok, it's quite bad. Oh man, I'm so sorry."

It was evident to see how much this had knocked the boy's confidence, so much to the point that Mack was feeling sorry for _him_ when they were _her_ glasses. "It's fine, really," she reassured, watching his gaze meet hers with an air of uncertainty.

"Really?" he questioned, unsure if her words were sincere or not.

"Yeah, it's no big deal," Mack reassured again, adding a small smile as another comfort. Although the longer that he held her gaze, the more she felt her encouraging smile turning sour and awkward and embarrassed.

"Let me make it up to you," the boy proposed, making a move to grab his phone from his back pocket on the whim of sparking an idea. "How about I still take you out for those smoothies I promised?"

"You're not even going to ask if I enjoyed the movie first?" Mack asked, slightly quirking one of her eyebrows.

"I can ask you that tomorrow," the blonde shot back with a smile, handing the girl his phone. "Can you give me your number? I'll text you the times and stuff tomorrow."

"Sure," Mack replied, fumbling around with her belongings to find her mobile. The numbers were exchanged in an awkward silence, the only sound filling the air being the faint tapping on the screens and the laugh-like exhale that escaped from the blonde's curled lips. The pair's gazes met once again, prompting even more bashful smiles to tug at their lips and redden their cheeks.

"Great, so I'll see you tomorrow?" the boy finally spoke up, checking that the plans had been arranged correctly before assuming anything.

"Yeah," Mack nodded, letting out her own awkward, breathy half-laugh as she tucked a loose strand of chestnut hair behind her ear. "Bye," she smiled, shifting her items over to one arm so that she could wave with the other.

"Bye," the boy copied, performing the same rushed, awkward wave as a form of farewell.

The two teens parted ways mere seconds later. Mack swiftly turned on her heels and started to walk down the shoreline back home, where her grandfather would no doubt be up waiting for her. But no sooner had she turned her back on the boy, she heard him calling her name.

"Mackenzie?" he questioned, his gaze having lifted from his phone screen to meet hers again.

It was only then that Mack realised that over the course of this bizarre encounter, she had never actually found out what the Wet Side Story loving, clumsy, blonde goofball's name was, and he hadn't found out hers. So Mack grabbed her phone, opened her contacts app and was instantly met with the newest number entered and its owner's name.

"Brady?" she checked, her eyes flicking back up to meet his.

He looked like a Brady. The name fitted him like a wet rash guard clung to your skin. Sometimes a name can have no feeling behind it; it's merely used as a title that doesn't quite go with its object. But this was a totally different case for Brady, everything down to his personality seemed to just echo the name. Brady. She liked it.

"Yeah," Brady said, shyly smiling at Mack again.

"Bye, Brady," Mack repeated quietly, tearing her eyes away from his after she felt herself blushing under his gaze.

"Bye, Mackenzie," Brady said, shooting the girl another small smile before turning away to gather up his stuff.

Mack felt a spark shoot through her spine as her name rolled of the boy's tongue, which just made her cheeks burn even more. She ducked her head down and tried to supress her giddy grin as she resumed her journey back home, picking up her pace a little to get home faster. Although Mack's head was swimming with a thousand thoughts, which were mainly centred around the charming blonde she'd stumbled up, she was sure of one thing for definite: she couldn't wait for tomorrow to come.

Wait a second, had she just let herself get asked on a date? She'd just given her number to a stranger and agreed to meet up with them the next day and she had been totally cool with it. This was so unlike Mack that it wasn't even funny anymore. How was this Brady boy so good at making her act out of character? It was like he drained the sensibleness out of her and just left behind the dorky girl who actually enjoys school but would much prefer hitting the surf to writing an essay.

Then again, she kind of liked that. And it took someone pretty special to do that to her, especially so quickly. Maybe this Brady would turn out to be as special as his effect on her.

Brady slid into one of the two seats arranged around a metal table outside the smoothie shop. He'd texted Mackenzie around an hour ago so he hoped that it wasn't too last minute for her, the last thing that he needed was to be stood up by one of the few girls that he had actually taken an interest in.

Wait, what was he talking about? He'd spent all morning telling himself that he wouldn't ruin today by slipping up or saying something stupid by letting his crush on this girl get in the way of their friendship. That's what this was, right? A friendship. Nothing more, nothing less. Oh who was he kidding? This wasn't even a friendship, he'd just forced her into watching a movie that she didn't even like and then had broken her sunglasses.

Why was he acting so weirdly? This wasn't at all how Brady normally acted. Where had his laidback attitude and carefree approach to life gone? And who was this anxious, hopeless romantic that the friendly, surfer boy been replaced with? And how did Brady get him to go away?

"Uh, hi."

Brady was snapped out of his thoughts at the sound of a girl's voice. A very familiar girl's voice. As soon as the words reached his ears he had jumped out of his seat and was face to face with the girl who had been occupying his mind for the last twelve hours: Mackenzie.

"Hey," Brady greeted, giving an awkward wave and taking a step back because the pair had ended up a little closer together than they had expected. Mack gave a small smile and bashfully bowed her head, leaving another uncomfortable silence between the pair. Eventually Brady spoke up, but he didn't really have the best choice of words. "I didn't think you were going to show up." He mentally kicked himself after opening his mouth, now he'd made it sound like he had a bad impression of her.

"Why wouldn't I have, you promised me smoothies, right?" Mackenzie replied, the edges of her lips twitching into a smile as her eyes flickered towards the two cups resting on the metal table behind the blonde boy.

"Yeah, right," Brady awkwardly laughed, his sense, that had been drained out of him at the overwhelmingly beautiful sight of the brunette, finally flooding back to him. He signalled for Mackenzie to sit down and through a series of more awkward laughs and stolen glances, the pair took their seats and tried many attempts at starting conversations.

Although both teens had been nervous about the encounter and their nerves were still riding at the top of the scale when they first arrived, they very quickly relaxed into their conversations. Their anxieties melted away almost immediately and no longer than five minutes later they were both talking, laughing and joking like they had known each other for years. How they had managed to break down that barrier between them so quickly they had no idea, but it was like they had an instant connection, a bond that they couldn't describe yet knew exactly how it felt.

They decided that the only way for them to stop being so awkward around each other was to get to know the other better. So they took it in turns to ask and answer questions and before long, they felt like they knew the other person better than themselves.

Brady found out that Mackenzie's favourite colour was yellow and Mack found out that his was blue.

Mack learnt that Brady had an older sister, a younger sister, two younger brothers and a mom and a dad (so a pretty big family as he had described it) and Brady had learnt that Mackenzie had lost her mother when she was still relatively young and she now lived by the beach with her grandfather.

Brady found out that Mackenzie actually enjoyed school Mack found out that Brady was very chilled when it came to good grades and stuff regarding school.

Mack discovered that Brady loved pickles more than his own sister and Brady was shocked to discover that Mackenzie would rather eat a grasshopper than touch a pickle.

Brady was informed, to his delight, that Mackenzie was a pretty keen surfer and Mack found out that Brady spent almost every hour of his day riding the waves.

It took them three hours to get through their smoothies since most of their time was spent discussing the various aspects of their lives. But when it came to saying goodbye, even though they'd been in each other's company for more than enough time that day, they found themselves reluctant to say goodbye.

"Uh, you should probably be getting back to your grandpa's place," Brady said after a pause in the conversation, averting his eyes so he didn't have to watch Mackenzie's face fall.

"Yeah, you're probably right," she agreed, grabbing her jacket from the back of her seat and picking her phone up from the metal table top.

"You can shoot me a text whenever you feel like it and I'm always at the beach if you want to find me," Brady babbled, standing up with the brunette to bid her farewell. "Not that I'm saying you have to find me, but you know, just in case," he backtracked, all of a sudden regaining the awkward, bashful demeanour that he had possessed until Mackenzie had shown up.

"Sure thing," Mackenzie smiled, her warm, bright, brown eyes moving up to meet his. "This was fun, we'll have to do it again sometime."

"Yeah," Brady agreed. "Definitely."

"Bye, Brady," Mackenzie sighed, hesitant to leave so abruptly. So before she knew what she was doing she was stepping towards the tall blonde with her arms outstretched and before Brady could stop himself he was wrapping his arms around the brunette. No sooner had the hug begun, it was broken off by two very embarrassed teens realising what they had just done.

"Um, well, I should probably get going," Mackenzie said, trying to hide the blush on her cheeks by letting her soft, hazelnut curls hang in down in front of her face a little.

"Yeah, bye Mackenzie," Brady said, giving the girl one last look before turning on his heels and making his way down the street.

"Brady," Mack called, catching the boy's attention at the last minute, before she could change her mind about what she was about to do.

"Yeah?" he asked, turning back around and praying that this wasn't going to be anything back.

"You can call me Mack," Mack smiled, figuring that if she had already been so open with this boy then she would at least give him the opportunity to refer to her as something she only allowed her family and best friends would.

"Mack," Brady repeated, mulling over the name for a second before a smile formed on his face. "I like it."

The pair shared another smile before they ripped their gazes away and walked home, barely able to contain their happiness to just a cheesy grin. They felt more like dancing the entire way home but that would have been socially unacceptable, even more socially unacceptable than the hug they had just had on their second meeting and the sudden introduction of nicknames. Mack had given Brady the chance to use the nickname that she had limited use to those closest to her, but who knows? Maybe Mack and Brady would end up a lot closer than they had ever anticipated on that summer's night. Who would have known that an awkward encounter, a cheesy movie musical from the 1960s, a broken pair of sunglasses and a mango smoothie could start it all?

 **I really hope that you liked it!**

 **I want to thank Lilypadsinwater again for the wonderful prompt, I really enjoyed writing it and I hope that I did it justice!**

 **As most of you know, I'm going to be writing a short Christmas story over the course of December so I'll post some more information about that soon because, like always, I need your help with a couple of things. But I don't want to ruin the last author's note of this story with that so I'll leave that for another time.**

 **First of all, I'd like to say thank you for all of the incredible support I've had with this story! I put this up intending it to be a few short stories to tide over my creative needs over the summer until I got the documents for my other story back, I certainly didn't intend for it to get so much feedback and for me to still be writing it at the end of November! I honestly can't thank you enough for reading my work and it means the world to me if I have been able to provide you with some entertainment when reading these stories. You're the reason why I'm still writing on here so I owe you all a lot for helping me discover something that I love to do!**

 **DynamicGiraffe, kellyh, Myra James, Guest, Guesty, Jyuoa, TKDP (who has been a huge and extremely sweet support), Owllover34 (who has been kind enough to provide me with plenty of amazing prompts to keep this story going), MaddieGerbz, Guest123, lela483, RossLynch4ever (who has been a huge support since the very beginning), hungryhipposlol, Lela1846, Guest365, Teenbeachgirl101, Lanycake, Lilypadsinwater, Sheena, Grace, Dancing Peach (who is incredibly lovely and supportive), Lily and Ferny, I can't thank you all enough. Together you've managed to rack up 93 reviews on a 16 (now 17) chapter story. That's insane! Thank you so much! I know this sounds really cheeky but could you all manage to pitch together and get this up to 100 now that it's over? It's a long shot but it would make me ridiculously happy. Anyway, I can hope, right? XD**

 **I'll be back to posting for Reality Check after I've finished my Christmas story and I'll be starting off the next chapter with a recap of everything that's happened so far (so you don't have to re-read all 24 (kind of badly written) chapters to know what's going on). Hopefully that will help anyone who still wants to follow my updates but doesn't have the time to be re-reading whole stories. Are you going to be reading Reality Check when I start updating it again? I'd love to know because I'm getting paranoid about disappointing you and losing you as a reader. But that's just me worrying like always, nothing new around here is there? XD**

 **Anyway, like I always say, thank you (from the bottom of my heart) for reading!**

 **-cherrygorilla**


	18. Alley Way Promises (Struts & Lugnut)

**Hi! I know this is a little random because I supposedly finished this story last year but I'm back with a little bonus chapter because I didn't have anywhere else to post this.**

 **I got a review on my latest chapter of Just Like Me (which I updated last week in case you missed it!) from the ever so lovely Owllover34 asking for another birthday one-shot and honestly I was so surprised to see that she (or anyone really) was still reading my stories and still cared about my writing enough to request something that I couldn't help but agree. I haven't been getting a lot of feedback lately, which kind of makes me feel like no one cares anymore and makes me lose motivation, so I apologise if I've kind of been super bad at posting lately. With the lack of confirmation that you're enjoying my stories and my insanely busy schedule I feel like I've kind of been checked out recently, but I'm hoping to start posting regularly again as soon as I can. :)**

 **Anyway, happy birthday Owllover34! I hope that I managed to do your prompt justice! I'm currently finishing this off at 11:40pm so it probably won't be perfect but I tried my best for you. I normally wouldn't be writing at this time but I just wanted to get it up on your actual birthday for you so I worked like crazy to get it done. I hope my hard work has paid off though and that you like the result!**

 **Warning: This is a little dark and has a few bits of bad language here and there. I only did it to make it seem a little more realistic though.**

 **Enjoy! :)**

"You know what, Struts? I don't even care anymore," Lugnut huffed, giving up on the argument, turning his back on it.

"That's my problem!" Struts exclaimed, so angrily that smoke was almost billowing from her ears. She wasn't letting Lugnut out of it that easily, so she marched back around to face him. "You don't care about anything, not your friends, not me, not even your bike. I can't remember the last time that you bothered to hang out with Butchy or Lela or any of us!"

"Whatever."

"Is that all you have to say?!"

"If it'll get you off my back then yes," Lugnut snapped.

"I can't say I'm surprised, with the way you've been acting lately it's like you never want to see me," Struts said rather sulkily.

"Struts, you know that's not true," Lugnut sighed, completely fed up with his girlfriend now.

"Well that's how it feels."

"Well maybe that's because you're always trying to start an argument."

"I am not!"

"Look, Struts, we're not doing this now," Lugnut started, letting out another heavy, almost pained, sigh.

"Why not? Why do I always have to do what you want?"

"It's not about that-"

"Then what is it about?!" Struts exclaimed, beyond frustrated now.

"It's about me not wanting us to make a scene in front of everyone!" Lugnut shouted back. Despite his best efforts, they weren't really succeeding at that.

"I think it's a little late for that," Struts said, spitting out the words like they were venom. "I'm sick and tired of being treated like crap just because it makes things easier for you. I'm a part of this relationship too you know! And don't you dare try to turn this back on me, I know I don't always make the right decision but I'm tired of always paying the consequences for mine _and_ your mistakes. It's not fair! I feel like shit most of the time because we never seem to get along anymore and you don't seem to have anything to say for yourself." Struts took a second to collect herself but found herself studying her boyfriend instead. His figure was slightly slumped, it looked like he was just hanging his head and taking every insult she was hurling at him. And this confused her. Why wasn't he fighting back like he would if she was literally anyone else? He looked defeated already. "Well, are you going to say anything?" she eventually asked. But really she was just trying to bring him back into the conversation.

"I can't do this anymore," Lugnut muttered, turning his back on her again. "I'm not doing this here."

"Lugnut," Struts started, reaching out to grab his arm. But he pulled it away.

"I'm not doing this here," Lugnut repeated, a firmness edging into his voice that even made Struts hesitant to fight back. She hadn't really seen him get this mad at her before. But then again, he never really got mad at her at all.

Usually when Lugnut got mad it was because of a rival gang member, and in that case he usually just blew a gasket. This, however, was a whole other story. His calmness was unsettling and there was so much fire behind his words that Struts' cheeks were starting to flush red.

"I need some space," Lugnut said, his voice low and hushed but with the same, cold fire as before.

A rock had been dropped down Struts' throat. It was left scratchy, like all of her words were too scared to venture up it. And the metaphorical rock had fallen with such force that Struts feared she might topple over. It just lay there in her stomach, its heaviness enveloping her and bringing her down.

"Okay," was all that Struts managed to say. She had to literally force herself to turn around; it felt like she was turning to stone. With each step she took towards the door she was fighting the urge to turn back. But she kept going. She kept walking.

Lugnut just stood and watched her go. It didn't feel like he was really in that moment, the world around him just seemed to be rippling like a pool of water. He just felt like he couldn't do anything even if he tried.

When he eventually brought himself to head back over to his friends he almost crashed straight into Giggles. Both he and Struts had been so caught up in their argument that they hadn't even seen the surfer girl approach with two drinks in her hands. "Sorry," he muttered, trying to shake himself back to reality.

"Don't worry about it," Giggles said, trying to be chirpy but not really succeeding. She'd pretty much been consumed by awkwardness after witnessing the tail-end of the couple's argument that she was almost 100% certain that she wasn't supposed to see. "Just let her cool off a bit," she added. She could tell that he was trying his best to hold himself back and not run after her. But she knew that if she let him then it wouldn't achieve anything, the endless bickering would just continue day in day out. As hard as it was, this time apart, even if it was merely an hour or two, was definitely what they needed.

"You think?" Lugnut asked, his eyes still locked longingly on the door.

"Well I just think you need to take your mind off it for a while," Giggles said. "And besides, there's a seat at our table with your name on it."

Lugnut finally dragged his eyes away from the door only for them to fall on the table of his friends. Between CheeChee and Struts wiping tears from their eyes, Coral almost falling off her chair, Butchy almost spitting out his drink and Seacat and Rascal throwing their heads back as they all laughed so hard they could barely breathe; Lugnut didn't know how he could possibly turn Giggles' offer down. He looked down at her and shot her a small smile as he took the drink from her outstretched hand. "Thanks, G."

"No problem," Giggles said, returning his small smile but making it ten times brighter. "And don't worry; I'll let you go after her in a bit," she added with an extra, knowing grin.

* * *

Struts felt like a complete mess. She was hobbling along the pavement in her pink stilettos and trying desperately to keep any tears from leaking down her cheeks. The last thing she needed now was for her makeup to run. At least, that's what she thought anyway. She had no idea how far she'd walked but it felt like miles, all she knew was that she was walking and had been doing so for over an hour. The early evening sky had turned from a rich blue to an inky black and the pavement in front of her was lit up in patches by dim, flickering street lights. The only thing driving her forwards at this point was keeping up the steady rhythm of her feet hitting the ground. So when that rhythm changed she was thrown off guard.

Before she had the time to process the fact that another pair of feet had joined hers on the path a hand grabbed the back of her jacket, along with a fistful of her hair and jerked her backwards. She let out a yelp of surprise as she was forcefully turned to face the owner of the hand but the real shock came when she saw the rest of the body that the hand belonged to.

"Well, well, well, look what's out here. This is a little out of your way, Struts, isn't it?"

The boy who had spoken was around her age, probably a year or two older. He had a strong, yet skinny frame and cold eyes that glittered with menace. Leo Ashford, and his cocky grin, was enough to make all of Struts' insides turn to liquid, slip down to her feet and then freeze there.

"Leo, hi," Struts said, so shocked to see him that she couldn't even think about hiding her fear.

"What are you doing 'round these parts at this hour?" he asked, his voice lowering to a more serious tone.

"I was just tak-taking a walk," Struts stuttered, flinching when he pulled on her hair a little to tighten his grip.

"In Scorpion territory?" he asked with a raised eyebrow.

"I-I didn't realise," Struts stammered as her heart rattled in her chest. She'd been so caught up in her thoughts that she hadn't even realised that she'd crossed over into the Rodents' rival biker gang's part of town. The Scorpions were completely ruthless and were some of the most arrogant people Struts had ever met. The only way that Butchy could ever get around them was by catching them out or getting lucky. If it ever turned nasty, which when it came to the Scorpions was more often than not, things very rarely ended well for him or any of the Rodents for that matter. As long as Butchy held his nerve though, things usually didn't get too confrontational.

But now, here was Struts all on her own in Scorpion territory with the crew leader's wingman towering over her.

"Oh dear," Leo leered, letting a wicked grin form on his face.

But the grin soon disappeared, in a matter of seconds it had turned to a dark glare and Struts had been dragged by her hair down a nearby alley. She was released by Leo with such force that she almost lost her balance.

"What happened to our deal?" he spat, his face partly hidden by shadows cast by the little light the streetlights gave off. It was easy to tell how angry he was though; it showed in every part of his body.

Struts froze, unable to think, unable to move, unable to breathe.

"I'm waiting," he added a little more forcefully when she didn't reply.

"W-what deal?" Struts lied.

"You know exactly what deal," Leo growled, slowly walking towards her.

As Struts glanced behind him she saw another Scorpion gang member stepping out from the shadows, guarding the alley and blocking her only route of escape as well as wearing a foul smirk across his face.

"We called it off, remember?" she said, her words catching in her throat, begging not to be said.

"I remember you trying to call it off. I don't remember agreeing," Leo sneered. "There's a lot riding on this deal for me, Struts, a lot more than you could ever understand." He was stood right in front of her again. Her back was pressed against a grimy brick wall and his body was looming over hers. "You probably thought you were helping your friends out by agreeing to do this with me, didn't you?"

Struts had, but she couldn't find the power in her to lie, answer him or even nod in response. It didn't matter though; Leo knew exactly that that's why she'd done it already.

"Well let me tell you something. If you can't follow up on your end of the deal then these friends of yours will have to find out what's happened to you instead," he said, his face now just inches from hers.

The smell of musky cologne and cigarette smoke surrounded Struts, she felt like she was going to pass out. She knew Leo was being deadly serious when making these threats; she wouldn't put it past him for a second given his reputation. Tears stung her eyes as she felt fear crawl its way up her body.

Leo grabbed Struts by the shoulders and pushed her back further against the wall, her head scraping against the rough brickwork. He gave her no other option than to look him directly in the eye. "I'm not losing everything I have because of you," he snarled. "Do you understand?"

Struts said nothing once again, deciding instead to focus on trying to stop the tears slipping from her eyes.

"Do you understand?"

"I'm not that girl anymore, Leo," Struts said, daring to actually speak up. "I couldn't go through with it."

"Well I'm sorry but you don't really have an option, do you?" Leo said, his features hardening in an instant.

Struts had tipped him over the edge and she knew it, maybe even before he did. And if this was going to go anything like his other confrontations then saying that had been a big mistake.

"I can't-"

"You don't get a say in this, Struts. You hear me?" he asked, shaking her by her leather jacket.

Silence was all that came as a response to Leo because Struts was so scared she couldn't even see clearly.

"I can't hear you," he bellowed, his words burrowing through her ears and imprinting themselves on her skull.

"Yes," she whispered, seemingly unable to respond in any other way. She squeezed her eyes shut but tears burst from them anyway. She'd never felt so scared in her life.

Leo practically threw her over to his other gang member, intending for her to trip and fall. But Struts managed to catch her footing. No more than a second later she decided to risk making a break for it, but the Scorpion boy guarding the alley was too quick for her. Leo's shouts sounded miles away as she stumbled towards the pavement his arm flew out towards her. In the yellow light from the street she saw something from the corner of her eye flash silver and then she felt something slice across the back of her hand. Fire felt like it was rushing through her veins almost immediately after it happened and she was so shocked by the pain she was sent reeling back. She clutched her hand as she staggered backwards but her mind was soon brought away from the blood when she fell back into a pair of arms.

Leo's arms locked around her in a vice like grip and squeezed her so hard she thought she was going to be split in two. "You've done it now, haven't you? You just made a big mistake!" Leo shouted as Struts kicked and fought against him. She begged and begged him to let her go but he grabbed her by the hair again and slammed her body back against the wall.

Struts' heart hammered in her chest as Leo's hand swiftly moved from her hair to her neck. Everything around her seemed to be moving too fast to process, but when Leo's face was in front of hers, his hand clamped around her neck and a crazed glint shining in his eyes, the one and only thing that she seemed to be able to understand was that she was going to die. She was going to die in a dingy alley at the hands of a boy who hated the bones of her without saying goodbye to her mom, to her friends, to Lugnut.

Lugnut.

Leo was ripped away from her with such force that she was pretty sure that he took a layer of her skin with him. He stumbled a step or two before he was grabbed by the back of his collar and smashed into the wall next to Struts. Pain shot through his skull like a bullet shattering a pane of glass. Instinctively he swung his arm back and jabbed his elbow into his attacker's chest.

Lugnut staggered backwards, winded not deterred.

Struts could hardly believe what she was seeing. The Scorpion member who had been guarding the alley was now lying flat on his back, clutching his side and wincing and now Leo was stood there with blood gushing from his nose. And Lugnut didn't even have a scratch.

Leo's whole body shook with anger as he used the back of his hand to try to wipe away some of the blood, but it just smeared across his cheek. "What? Come to collect your doll, have you?" he spat at Lugnut, a foul chuckle emerging from his throat.

"I'm not finding this funny, scumbag," Lugnut barked.

"I am," Leo said cockily, flashing a cross between a grin and a grimace at the biker boy. "I've got your little Struts right where I want her-"

Lugnut couldn't control his anger anymore, he lunged at Leo, determined to wipe that stupid grin off his face if it was the last thing he did.

Leo received a powerful punch from him; it hit him square in the jaw and made him lose his balance. But he was soon brought back up to full height when Lugnut grabbed him by the collar bone and hauled him to his feet.

"If you go near her again I swear to God-" he snarled, but he was cut off by Leo, who let out another of his breathy, venomous laughs.

"What? What are you gonna do to me, LugFu-"

But before Leo could finish saying his stupid nickname Lugnut gave a sharp uppercut that shut him up very quickly.

Leo didn't even have time to think when he took the next blow. Lugnut punched his chest, sending him stumbling backwards once again. But the thing that finish him was when Lugnut kicked him in the stomach as hard as he could. The biker boy was knocked to the floor and almost immediately doubled over in pain. A strained whimper flew from his mouth and once Lugnut heard that and saw his eyes scrunched up tight he knew that Leo wasn't going to be fighting back any time soon. But that didn't mean that his fellow gang members wouldn't be either. So he grabbed Struts' hand and ushered her as quickly as he could back onto the pavement and down the street to where his bike was parked.

"Lugnut," Struts started, still completely breathless and trembling from the whole ordeal.

"Ssh, let's just get out of here first," Lugnut said, but still gave her hand a reassuring squeeze.

Struts fumbled with her helmet but got on the bike without saying a word and held onto him the whole ride home as if she'd never let go of him again. Lugnut sped back to their neighbourhood in almost record time and no sooner had he stopped the bike he was up on his feet helping Struts off the back of it.

All she had to do was take one look at him before collapsing into his arms and sobbing into his chest.

"Oh God, Struts, I'm so sorry I wasn't there sooner," Lugnut said quietly, holding her a little tighter each time a sob shook her whole body. "What did they do? They didn't hurt you, did they?" he asked frantically, standing back and letting his eyes scan over her body.

Struts weakly lifted her hand and looked at the wound for the first time. The back of her left hand was smeared with blood from the gash that tore across it. It wasn't deep but it was a lot bigger than your average paper cut.

Lugnut's heart stopped momentarily when he saw the cut. He swore under his breath and Struts could instantly tell he was panicking just from the way he was looking at it.

"It's okay," Struts said weakly as her tears started to dry up. "It doesn't really hurt that much now."

"Babe, I'm so sorry, this is all my fault," Lugnut gushed.

"It's not your fault at all; I'm the one that walked there in the first place. I'm the one that got involved with Leo, I should have known better but-"

Fresh tears were already starting to flow from Struts' eyes as she spoke. So Lugnut wrapped her in his arms again. "Ssh, come on, you're home now," he said quietly, trying his best to soothe her. He never thought he'd been very good at it but right now this was all that Struts wanted.

"I'm sorry I walked off," Struts said half to his face, half to his shirt.

"I'm sorry I pushed you away," Lugnut said back.

"I'm sorry I always fuss over you."

"I'm sorry for not acting like I care."

"I'm sorry for always bickering."

"I'm sorry that I ignore you when I'm mad."

"I'm sorry for putting you through everything I have."

"I'm sorry I'm never there when you need me."

"You came to rescue me tonight though, didn't you?" Struts said, lifting her head and mustering a small, but grateful smile.

"I guess, I don't know if you'd call it a rescue though," Lugnut said.

"Well I don't think there's a better way to put it. You saved my life, I honestly thought he was going to kill me," Struts said, her voice wavering as she felt tears threatening her eyes once again.

"So did I," Lugnut said. "I don't know what I would have done if he did. I just lost it before he even did anything."

Struts found herself resting her head against Lugnut's chest once more, the weight of what she'd just been through encasing her again.

"Oh my God, Lugnut, it was awful," she whimpered.

"Ssh, it's ok, we're home now," he repeated, gently rubbing circles on her back before pressing a kiss to her forehead. "I won't let them near you again, I promise."

"Okay," Struts choked out with a meek nod. She waited a few seconds before plucking up the courage to speak again though. "Can we just start afresh tomorrow?"

"What do you mean?"

"Like, pretend the fight tonight didn't happen and try to forget about everything with Leo. I just want us to go back to being us."

"Me too," Lugnut said, taking Struts' right, uninjured hand in his before lifting it up and giving it a quick kiss.

"Your aim's getting worse and worse," Struts said, her lips hinting at a smirk as she playfully rolled her eyes.

"What do you mean?" Lugnut chuckled.

And Struts showed him, she showed him how to aim properly, which she did by leaning in and pressing her lips to his.

Lugnut let his arm slip down to Struts' waist as her hand crept up and cupped the back of his head.

"Now," Lugnut started when they parted, trying desperately to suppress the grin that was threatening to take over his face. "I think we need to get you home and clean you up."

"If you say so," Struts smiled. "Only if you stay for a while though."

"I think that can be arranged," Lugnut chuckled as Struts slipped her arm in his and he led her down the street.

Even after a night as traumatic as theirs had been, the company of each other was enough to bring a smile to their faces. They knew they had each other now and that's all they needed.

 **I hope you liked it! I really enjoyed writing this; it's something a little different to my usual style so it was a nice change. And it also might me a little nod towards a possible plot line of a possible sequel to Reality Check (if I find the motivation to finish the next chapter and the story...) but ssh, don't tell anyone. ;)**

 **What did you think of it though? I'm really interested to know! What do you think that the deal that Struts made with Leo was? What do you think of Leo? Just what did you think of the chapter in general? What was good? What was bad? Let me know so that I can improve next time!**

 **Once again, happy birthday Owllover34! I'm so glad that you still read and enjoy my stories (I honestly thought you'd lost interest after not hearing from you for so long) and I hope that you had a lovely birthday!**

 **Also, quick little announcement: it was my three year anniversary yesterday! And I forgot...again. I can't believe I'm still here writing stories and sharing them with you. When I started I had no idea that I'd still be enjoying it this far down the line and I guarantee that I wouldn't be if it wasn't for you guys and the positive reviews I get. I really can't thank you enough for all the support you've given me and my work and I don't know about you but here's to another year of Cherry and her stupid stories!**

 **Thank you so much for reading! Please don't forget to leave a review, you know how much they mean to me by now!**

 **-cherrygorilla**


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